


not for him a watery grave

by ladyendymion



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: AU after Before Sunset, BAMF Caroline, BAMF Kol Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes & Stefan Salvatore Friendship, Episode: so3e21 Before Sunset, F/M, Minor Caroline Forbes/Tyler Lockwood, Minor Elena Gilbert/Stefan Salvatore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-07 05:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3162827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyendymion/pseuds/ladyendymion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's saved her life, more than once. Doesn't she owe him the same? An alliance, a rescue, a race against time. A possibility. Hope. AU after Season 3: Before Sunset.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1: dashed all to pieces

**Author's Note:**

> This story is only 4 chapters and was first posted over two years ago. I took it down for personal reasons, but have since rethought my decision so here it is. I don’t watch the show or ship Klaroline anymore so there will not be a sequel (which was my original intention).  
> Thanks to my beta Anastasia Dreams.

_My story begins at sea ... The wild waters roar and heave.  The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces ... A lady whose soul is greater than the ocean and her spirit stronger than the sea’s embrace.  Not for her a watery grave but a new life beginning on a stranger shore.  It will be a love story, for she will be my heroine for all time. ~ Tom Stoppard,_ Shakespeare in Love, from which I adapted the story’s title  
  
 **Chapter 1: dashed all to pieces**  
  
She’s standing in her living room, shaking, calling, “Mom!  Mom!”  She’s half-relieved when Liz does not bustle in, taking charge, and demanding answers from Caroline, as if Caroline is her own personal database of vampire knowledge.  She still needs her mother sometimes, except it can wait.  When she pulls herself together, wipe away her blood and the still-burning vervain, stop shaking.  Appear stronger than she feels.  Liz doesn’t need to see the evidence that her daughter is still weak sometimes.  Caroline doesn’t need her mother’s instinct to run off determined to end Alaric and be lost.  The tide has turned and they protect each other sometimes.  
  
She breathes in and out, slowly, as her father taught her, as Stefan taught her, to control her cravings.  She can do this.  She’s been tortured before.  In and out.  Slowly.  
  
She’s still jittery, and God she needs a drink.  
  
She never used to drink so much, but being a vampire has changed that too.  The alcoholic burn quenches the flare of bloodlust when she is tired or hurting or anxious or just _relieved._   All those jumbled up confused teenaged emotions made worse by her undead status.  
  
And by Klaus.  
  
He’s really good at messing with her emotions.  
  
Like making her trust him – just a _teensy_ bit.  Enough to believe him when he told her to leave and let him play the hero.  
  
Of course that’s not what he actually said.  
  
 _It's okay. It's me, it's okay. You're safe. We'll save Elena, you go straight home, you stay inside._  
  
Low and soft and caring.  
  
Like he hasn’t tried to kill them all at one point or other.  Even her.  
  
Like he is a hero and not a serial killer.  
  
Like he isn’t just saving Elena to be his personal blood bag / donor.  
  
But, really, the only thing she’s thinking about clearly is: go home, is Elena safe, is Alaric gone forever?  
  
Mostly, is Elena safe?  
  
Because Caroline cannot bear the fact that she did flee and leave her friend behind, even though there were others more capable of saving Elena at that moment.  
  
But Elena had rushed to her, to save her.  
  
And precious few actually do that for Caroline.  
  
Except apparently Klaus.  
  
She’s still searching for her stashed emergency vodka when her phone buzzes and starts to ring.  She fumbles through her pockets with it’s “should have been a princess ...”  
  
In spite of her distress, she half-smiles at Tyler’s flashing name.  She nearly drops her phone at the news. “B-but I thought that – what about Alaric?”  Is that the floor rising up to meet her?   
  
Is that a normal reaction?  
  
She somehow listens to Tyler’s explanation, though her mind races so that she hardly comprehends anything at all.  Just no – something recoils inside so abruptly that she could really just coil into a ball or lash out to anything, possibly violence, even preferably violence.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“Of course I’m sure.”  
  
“I mean, is it... permanent?”  
  
“Well, yeah.  Damon and Stefan are going to make sure of that.”  
  
Of course they would.  Does she murmur this to Tyler? – that “of course” that sounds more bitter than she expects?  She can’t even be certain why.  She hears him say “Atlantic,” and all she sees is a coffin lying lonely on the ocean floor.  For all time.  
  
“But he’s not ... dead?”  
  
“No, I’m safe,” Tyler responds as if he has not heard her, and for one freaky moment, Caroline thinks, that should be my worry.  I should have thought of that.  I should.  Why didn’t I?  
  
She nearly hyperventilates.

  
Why didn’t she?  
  
She loves Tyler.  
  
Except – no, not except.  
  
Klaus is supposed to show her the world, someday, in a hundred years.  She was supposed to show up on his doorstep, and she believed him.  For once, she believed him completely.  She could see that happening, someday.  Someday.  When Mystic Falls was so far behind that it didn’t matter.  
  
She just isn’t ready yet.  She doesn’t want it yet – and she doesn’t want him.  She can’t think “not yet.”  
  
He chose her first.  He saved her first.  
  
But she loves Tyler.  
  
Suddenly, she is excruciatingly aware of everything that Klaus wanted to tell her or show her, but didn’t or couldn’t.  His past.  The nonviolent part.  Courts and paintings and a million things that she would never see.   
  
And she couldn’t ever deny him again.   
  
Mystic Falls has a way of fucking everything up.  
  
Oh, God, is that selfish of her?  
  
“Don’t you see?  We are free, Caroline, finally free.”   
  
“We’re not free Tyler.  There is a psycho Original wearing our history teacher’s face, determined to exterminate our race.”  Even though everything sounds murky, she is absolutely certain of this.   
  
“I know that Caroline.” He sounds irritated. “But let’s just enjoy this victory tonight and worry about stopping Alaric tomorrow.”  
  
She cannot help the huff that escapes, and twirls to the bookcase, rifling through shelves.  God she needs that drink. “Victory?  You’ve just neutralised an ally.”  And all the books are on the floor and she still can’t find a drink.  She’s actually proud that her voice sounds so steady, a complete opposite to her shaking thoughts.  
  
“An ally?”  His incredulity makes her frown at her own indiscretion and stop her search for alcohol.  Because, really?  She needs to be of sound mind and body for the territory that they have wandered into. “Let me get this straight,” he says, “you are _angry_ at _me_ that Klaus is defeated?”  
  
“I’m not angry, Tyler.”  
  
He scoffs.  
  
“Well, a bit, but only because Alaric is still out there and we might need Klaus.  For once in our lives, Klaus is not the problem.  He might actually be useful to us, _on our side_.”   
  
“Caroline –” he can’t even address the Klaus issue with her on the phone.  He recognises her point, as much as he doesn’t want to recognise it, but he can’t acknowledge it.  She can sense it, and dreads the in-person conversation later.  He won’t drop it.  Not after the drawing. “Can we just forget about Alaric tonight?” he pleads.  
  
Can we just forget about Klaus and celebrate his maybe-permanent demise? is what he should have said, she thinks.  
  
She doesn’t even understand why she is reacting this way.  It is not normal, she knows that.  She _knows_ , but she can’t stop recoiling.  
  
She sighs, “No, you’re right.  Of course we should.”  That’s how she should react, right?  That’s how a _normal_ person reacts when a murderer, who has _just_ tried to kill her best friend, has been defeated.  Right?  
  
Is this part of her humanity wavering?  Because, really, the only thing that she can focus on now is that Klaus could be gone forever.  
  
No more dances or long, slow looks, or entirely inappropriate gifts that make her feel like the princess she always wanted to be.  No softness reserved only for her.  
  
But he’s not dead, and some niggling half-formed thought suggests that it could be reversed.  It could, hypothetically, couldn’t it?  He could be woken.  
  
If he wasn’t at the bottom of the Atlantic.  
  
Oh my God, she is a horrible person.

  
“I’m coming over,” he says.  
  
“Great,” she murmurs, and tries to sound a bit more enthusiastic.  Except, doesn’t she sound a bit psychotic? “I miss you Tyler.”  And she does.  He’s been away for so long that she can’t stay angry, especially when that anger is inappropriate.  
  
He sighs as well.  He cannot resist that soft tone. “I love you, Caroline.”  He pauses, “This Klaus thing?  It will turn out fine.  Trust me, Caroline.  We’ll take down Alaric and we certainly don’t _need_ him.”  
  
And just like that her horror is back, creeping over her slowly, sinking her like quicksand.  
  
“I’m on my way over,” he insists again, and she’s wondering, why he is saying this again?  Why is it so important?  But, then, she was tortured right?  Even though he didn’t really say it, Tyler must be worried.  He would be.  Or maybe he had been, but she had latched on to the news about Klaus like a vice.  
  
She is relieved, as always, to have Tyler near, so she insists as well, a startled “yes,” like a yelp.    Soon she wouldn’t be able to breathe at all.  He asks if she is alright.

  
No, she’s not.  She can’t be yet.  She still feels _his_ hand pressed against her mouth.  
  
 _It's me, it's okay. You're safe._

__  
She’s about as far from okay as you can get.  Or safe.  
  
She’s sinking through the floor and she needs to right this ship.  Even her metaphors are all mixed up, fucked up.  “I’m fine, fine,” she says.  She needs to call Elena or Stefan or someone.  They need to ... celebrate ... she chokes on the word.  
  
That niggling thought?  It’s turned into a full-fledged idea, and clear on it’s way to be a plan.  
  
An eye for an eye, a life for a life, makes the world go round.  
  
She calls Rebekah instead.  
  
The thing about Caroline?  She’s impulsive.  She may worry and obsess over every word and action later (because, neurotic), but she acts first.  She doesn’t really think about ramifications when she picks her phone back up and scrolls for Rebekah, thanking all the gods for all those horrible hours in committee together.  That she even has Rebekah’s number.  
  
She just does it.  
  
She owes him this much.  
  
She cannot, will not, think about Elena and all her blood ciphoning into bags.  
  
It rings and rings and rings and damn it – doesn’t Rebekah _know_ that Caroline would never call her willingly?  
  
She just cannot leave a voicemail.  
  
Unfortunately, Kol answers – and that is so much worse than no answer at all.  She may have only seen him a few times, but she’d recognise that gleeful sadistic tone anywhere. “The ever-stunning Caroline.  You are living yet?”   
  
“Is Rebekah there?”  
  
“She might be, darling,” he equivocates, probably just for the hell of it.   
  
This is a fucking emergency, and she just doesn’t have time for this. “I need to speak with her,” Caroline insists, firmly if a little desperately.  
  
“Hmmm,” he considers, and she hears muffled fumbling in the background, and a “Kol, you fucking reprobate, give me the phone!”  
  
If one of the remaining Mikaelson brothers had to answer, why could it have not been Elijah?  
  
Another fumble, and a crack and a thump, and Caroline suspects that Rebekah has either broken Kol’s neck or skull.  Or at least she hopes it is Rebekah and not Kol the victor.  She doesn’t know how to handle that brother _at all_.  She needs an Original, but she doesn’t know if she can trust Kol with this completely.  He is, quite possibly, the most insane one of the family.  
  
She can trust Rebekah with this.  Even if her methods are horrific, she will find Klaus.  Caroline knows this implicitly.  Rebekah is nothing if not loyal to her family and she loves Klaus more than anything in this world.   
  
“Right,” Rebekah says.  Caroline hears her fumbling with the phone and threatening Kol with a table leg. “I am moderately pleased to hear that you escaped Alaric Saltzman, but you really didn’t have to call, Caroline.”  
  
Caroline rolls her eyes. “I didn’t call to commiserate over our mutual close call, Rebekah.  We have a much bigger problem.  It’s Klaus.”  
  
Rebekah huffs. “I may be annoyed with my brother, Caroline, but I am not teaming up against him … again.”  
  
“Pleased to hear it, but Klaus actually isn’t the problem.  He’s in trouble.”  
  
“Right.  As if I’d believe you.  How many times exactly have you tried to kill me or my brothers?”  
  
“Jesus Christ, Rebekah.  I don’t have time to argue.  Klaus really is in trouble and he could be spending the rest of eternity at the bottom of the Atlantic or he could be staked by Alaric very soon.”  
  
“What?” The commotion on Rebekah’s end stills to an eery silence.  Kol must be listening as well. “Caroline, you must be mistaken.  Nik is leaving town.  He just had to run a few errands.”  
  
“Well, one of those errands was the attempted abduction of Elena.  Damon and Stefan caught up with him.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Klaus went after Elena and ended up dessicated instead of Alaric,” she clarifies, “the same spell that was used on Mikael.”  
  
“Okay, okay,” Rebekah’s voice wavers just a little. “And they plan to drop him in the Atlantic, I take it?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Why are you telling us this, Caroline?” Kol interrupts.  His serious voice scares Caroline more than Klaus’s ever had.  It has a peculiar chilling effect that she can feel inside her bones, and as irrational as it seems, he feels like the most dangerous Original of all.  At least to her.  But she is glad to have him on her side this time – in a manner of speaking.  
  
“I don’t know, okay?  I just – this can’t happen.”  Some part of her recognises that this can’t ever happen.  
  
“How do we know that we can trust you?” he says.  
  
“I’m telling you this, aren’t I?  Going against my friends for this.”  
  
“See, darling, that is what I find most troubling.  Why would you do such an immeasurably bold thing?  For _my brother_?”  
  
Oh God, she does not need this conversation now. “Look, grill me all you want later, but we need to do something now.”  
  
“Kol, shut up.” Caroline has never felt so grateful to hear Rebekah’s voice again. “Caroline, if you are setting us up for some nefarious Salvatore plan, I will hunt you down and everyone you love and rip their intestines out in front of you.”  
  
“Duly noted.”  She is definitely Klaus’s sister.  
  
“Right then, we’ve got a rescue to plan,” Rebekah says.

* * *

* * *

 

When Tyler shows up, she has already downed half a dozen gulps of vodka and planned her party.  Pizzas, chocolate, chips, and cheese – all on their way to the Gilbert house for a night of victory (and betrayal) and general sticking one’s head in the sand.  She feels better, steadier, and slightly proud of herself for going rogue.  Caroline Forbes, rogue vampire saviour, that’s her.  
  
They’ll all realise that it was for the best, when they are all still _not dead_.   
  
Tyler takes the bottle from her for a swig. “Celebrating without me?” he smirks and draws her near.  
  
The vodka also restored some anger, so she scoffs.  Of course he says the wrong thing.  He is Tyler fucking Lockwood.  She is just a bit unreasonable, considering, but shouldn’t he have asked about her?  Hello, she was tortured.  Or is everyone too used to that scenario already?  Phone concern does not entirely count.  
  
As always, his expression softens and he redeems himself.  He cradles her face in his hands and murmurs that he loves her, that he needs her, and she swallows the anger and guilt.  He broke the Sire bond for her, endured hell for her.  On some level, she’s still dancing with Klaus, and hiding things.   
  
Even if it was for their own good.  
  
So, she kisses him to swallow all that down completely, and closes her eyes against Tyler’s triumphant expression.  She just can’t be triumphant.  
  
She just can’t think of Klaus veiny and grey and dessicated.  She just can’t.  
  
 _He’s_ Klaus and he’s saved her so many times.  Shouldn’t that count for something?  Even when Tyler holds her, shouldn’t that count for something?  
  
Still, she presses against Tyler, before the anger threatens to shoot up again.  She opens her mouth to his urging, but freezes at his touch.  Those hands, they held _him_ back and vulnerable as the greying rushed over, cold like death should be, veins creeping over, dessicating, paralysing.  It’s just not right.  She could almost feel it too, death in Tyler’s hands and kiss like poison.  Like she’s dessicating too.


	2. Chapter 2: my heroine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Thanks to my wonderful and encouraging beta Anastasia Dreams. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.
> 
> Chapter 2 of 4: my heroine
> 
> I will weep for thee;  
> For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like  
> Another fall of man.  
> ~ William Shakespeare, Henry V

The first thing Caroline says to Elena when she finally arrives at the Gilbert house is the expected, “Are you okay?” That may not be exactly true. But it was the first _real_ thing she said to her friend. She’d joined in with the others proclaiming their happiness at _his_ … incapacitation. It is expected, isn’t it? She isn’t so far gone that she cannot play her role as concerned and justified best friend.

 Only it isn’t a role – not in the way that artifice would suggest.

 She is really and truly happy that Elena was rescued and _is_ okay. She loves Elena like she would love a sister if she had one. She cannot imagine a world in which Elena does not exist. Even though so much has happened in the last year to magnify Elena’s fragility in Caroline’s mind, she still cannot wrap her head around the idea that Elena could very well be gone – forever gone. And it might be soon. It might. Elena is amazingly strong for someone who has cheated death on a weekly basis.

 Yet, Elena could die.

 She almost did die by the very hand that Caroline is trying, discreetly, desperately to save.

 Someone else she cannot ever imagine not existing.

 He saved her, didn’t he? She owes him something. At least that is what she tells herself when she hears his voice whispering, “perhaps one day …”

 And sometimes, horrifically, “go, go … go to hell,” as if he reproaches her for this very presence at a party of her own making and celebrating his partial demise.

 How can I acquit myself? she thinks, usurping his words. I don’t know, I don’t know, she keeps chanting, frantically her in mind, struggling to keep the words inside, taking sips from her clichéd red cup and biting the rim. Two perfect fang marks near the top, leaking tiny rivelets of vodka and orange juice down her neck with every too-frequent drink.

 Messy and Caroline is never messy.

 She tries hard to keep the two warring emotions/loyalties/betrayals compartmentalised in order to still her frenetic gestures. She has to keep them separate, believe the lie that she created – that the two – Elena and Klaus – really have nothing to do with one another. At least for this evening. To get through this evening. She’s already set things in motion. It is enough that she has to play at being triumphant and gleeful and the dutiful, contented girlfriend.

 Holding onto Tyler’s waist and allowing his smiles against her neck, especially when those smiles falter at each gulp of vodka. As if he can taste her treachery in the slivers of alcohol meeting his lips at her neck.

 The role of a lifetime.

 Here stands Caroline Forbes, disloyal friend, treacherous girlfriend. She saved a monster once.

 Is that what they will say of her? If she survives. Or if she does not. She isn’t entirely sure which way she wants this to end at this point. She can’t even think beyond this night.

 She takes deep breaths which she hides in giggles. Isn’t it a night to be giggling? No, that is not a question.

 She hugs Elena tightly, tells her how happy she is that she’s safe too, that they both made it this time and she chokes at the moan escaping Elena, proving she’s still weak, still too fragile from … what _he_ did. Caroline’s hands run down her friend’s body protectively, stilling at the bandage around her elbow where the IV had been. She imagines the too vivid, scarlet trails sliding from Elena’s arm and Klaus watching with some detachment. Only lamenting that the line is almost up. That he cannot keep this line forever, lifetimes and lineages just for his use. His only regret.

 It isn’t fair that he has only that regret.

 She already has too many. She can’t shut down completely. Not even sympathy or empathy for him, despite what’s he’s done. It’s got to be the monster trapped inside her since the day she was turned. The one that reveled in the power of killing that man. It’s not her. Not Caroline. It can’t be.

 She hugs her friend closer, if more gently, more supremely aware that Elena is human.   She hears the pulse still a little too weak, beating at the jugular. “Oh god, Elena. I’m sorry.”

 Elena pats her head in an almost maternal manner and pulls back. “Why on earth should you be sorry for being kidnapped? Or that I was stupid enough to think that I could help you without backup?”

 That’s Elena for you. Even when she’s almost dead, even when it’s your fault (even just the fraction that she knows because she tried to save you), she’ll still shoulder the guilt if she can. It’s not exactly because she’s addicted to victim-hood (though she is – even when she’s guilt-ridden, Caroline can admit that bit of bitchiness); it really is because Elena loves too damn much. She cannot bear for anyone to be unhappy because of her. And ironically, because of that very trait so many people do get hurt – like Caroline and Tyler and Stefan and Damon and Jeremy and Jenna and the list can go on for a mile.

 “It’s not …” Caroline doesn’t even know what she meant to say, but when she really looks at Elena, finally meeting her eyes, her brow crinkled – concerned for Caroline, she swallows back a sob. Klaus meant to save Elena too, even though he had botched it; she feels some sort of comraderie with Elena. He would have saved them both from Alaric if he could, even if his motives had been different. But he’d failed and exacted a different price. But still … but still she wonders about that encounter, what exactly had gone wrong in those final moments that led to … this.

 “I should have stayed to help you,” Caroline insists.

 “You would have died, Caroline.” But you did it, Caroline thinks, ran into almost certain death for me. She will not finish that thought.

 “How are you holding up?” Elena asks. “I think Damon or Stefan left some blood bags here, if that would help.”

 “No, I’m good,” she says, her voice only a quiver. She even smiles. “It’s just a lot to take in, you know?”

 Elena nods. “Too much. To see Ric like that …”

 Silence. That is what she should focus on, isn’t it? Ric. That is what a normal person would – if there can be a normal reaction for anything in Mystic Falls these days. But really. What can you say to that? Ric was supposed to be the steady wise one among them. Not the monster. Not the guy that the Big Bad has to rescue you from. If you are one of the good guys/girls anyway.

 She wants, desperately, to ask Elena what had gone down. How Klaus failed. It is too wild. Caroline can’t contemplate that there is someone out there strong enough to take down Klaus. Just brute strength. No subterfuge.

 What had Klaus been like in those final moments? Before Stefan and Damon and Tyler had … It seems like a nonsensical question, because she’s seen him in all his villain glory. Hello? She’d been there when Tyler was turned and there at Homecoming. It’s just that, she keeps coming back to those few last moments, just after he left her in the hallway. What happened then?

 It’s like – if she can trace his steps, his actions, his voice afterwards, then maybe she can understand why she feels as though she has been split right through the heart and dessicated with him. There has to be an explanation for this. If she could just see what had happened, then maybe …

 … then maybe she could explain to herself why she has betrayed her friends.

 “Elena,” she ventures, puzzling how to pose a question innocently, “how did you …”

 Elena cocks her head to the side. “I thought Tyler would have told you?” She smiles brightly and looks towards Tyler joking around with Jeremy and Matt. “It was him. He saved me with Stefan and Damon – but it was because of Tyler.”

 She looks back towards Caroline, who belatedly quirks her lips in a not-quite-smile. “I didn’t know,” she says. Not that he was the catalyst. She’s supposed to be the proud girlfriend. And she is – proud that he broke the Sire bond. She is. She takes a long gulp, trying to catch the liquid before it dribbles down the side, as precious as warm blood. When the cup is empty, she pours another, careful not to tip it over, pouring far more vodka than orange juice this time and avoids Elena’s gaze again.

 Suddenly she doesn’t want to know anymore.

 “Who knew Tyler Lockwood could be modest?” Elena jokes.

 Caroline giggles, holding her cup just a little too tightly until it dents and sloshes over the side. Because it is a night for giggling right?

 

* * *

* * *

 

She doesn’t want to know, but she still can’t keep wondering.

 Caroline watches Elena with a wholly unnatural interest. Even when she is laughing and dancing and talking nonsense. Not predator-like. Certainly not. But with an intensity hitherto reserved for their competitive cheer days and Miss Mystic Falls. A study, if she could read her thoughts through her actions. But Caroline is not old enough or gifted enough for that trick yet. Her Klaus voice urges that he could teach her someday when today is all over and her friends are all gone.

 She can’t help it. Elena is the last one who saw Klaus as he really was, before the weakness and dessication. So, she stares and stares as though she can take that image from her friend – like Harry Potter had taken those images of Lily and James from Snape. Except this isn’t Hogwarts and if it were, she’d be the exact opposite of Severus Snape, betraying the Order for the Death Eaters. She shakes her head. That way lies madness.

 Every time she closes her eyes, even just for a moment’s blink, she see what she never actually saw: Klaus grey and veiny and still. Even when she feels his hand against her mouth and thinks of them dancing, hearing the strains of “One day he’ll come along …” The 1920s. A white linen suit. Too many promises and threats. She only sees that corpse figure. Perhaps it’s her cross to bear through the night, threatening her sanity and willing her confession.

 She shouldn’t be romanticising this. He was ( _is_ ) a monster. It doesn’t matter what he’s done for her, what he’s said to her when no one else is around. How he talks to her differently. What he lets her say to him. He’s always going to be a monster. He can’t be fixed. Not like Stefan can. He doesn’t even want to be. He revells in everything, and that alone should override any sympathetic feelings. If she were not so fucked up, it would.

 She wants ( _needs_ ) to think differently. Concentrate on Tyler. Feel him warm and close and _not_ grey beside her. He’s her boyfriend and she loves him. She does. That is not the question.

 But her eyes still follow Elena.

 She wonders, is this what Elena feels? For Stefan. About Stefan. Because he saved her? Because he’d come into her life at the exact right moment, a white knight, and made everything okay again. No, not again. But still, always. He’d played the hero for her and Elena can never see past that. Perhaps will never see past that. That is why, no matter how Damon loves her and struggles and would die for her, she’ll always choose Stefan. Because even when he’s Ripper Stefan there’s always going to be that pure, true part of him reserved for Elena alone. That will always love Elena. That will never hurt Elena even when he is driven to madness at the edge of a bridge.

 So Elena soldiers on as constant as the sun, burning away, forgiving any wickedness. Because Elena recognises that part of him, needs that part as much as she needs anything on this earth.

 Is that the way it works?

 But Caroline isn’t Elena and Klaus certainly isn’t Stefan and there is certainly no love involved. She remembers Elena telling her right from the beginning that she knew it was Stefan, that it would always be Stefan.

 If it were only that easy.

 Instead of a werewolf bite and a bracelet meant for a princess and a drawing she should not have kept.

 And, you know, the almost-killing of her best friend – twice. There’s that.

 So, it isn’t the same thing at all.

 Elena laughs at Bonnie for some reason and Caroline joins in, maybe half-heartedly, maybe hysterically. She can’t seem to hear much beyond the buzzing, humming Klaus-voice stuck on repeat in her head.

 She joins Tyler. Maybe it’s safer, because if she keeps hanging around Elena, she’s going to pop, blurt out all the questions she should not have. Slipping into his side should be like home. It had almost felt like home when he returned from Mystic Falls all triumphant and un-Sired.

 Except, Tyler did it, didn’t he? Maybe not literally in the way it had been Stefan, grasping and squeezing Klaus’s heart into submission.

 She recoils at the slight weight of Tyler’s touch. She’s been crumbling since that phone call hours before. If she can just hold herself together through this night …

 He pulls her in closer, still running on adrenaline and plants forceful kisses on her lips and along her jaw, greedy for her. Because the source of all their troubles is neutralised forever. They can be happy together – maybe not forever, because forever has a different meaning for their immortal selves. They are still teenagers. But for a little while.

 He says, “My Care,” confidently, as though Klaus’s dessication has made her irrevocably his. The battle won.

 She still tastes the dessication in his lips.   But she’s the dutiful girlfriend, and she really does not _want_ to hurt him, so she closes her eyes and kisses him back.

 To her surprise, the corpse figure is transfigured behind her lids. The warm-toned Klaus of the ball and dance and outside the Grill. Alive. For her. It must be some remnant of the Sire-bond. She clutches Tyler tighter and sucks his mouth as though she’s trying to suck some essence Klaus left behind. Somehow.

 Tyler who moans and pulls away. An adoring look. Apparently satisfied that she’s gotten over whatever has been causing her to pull away all evening. He kisses her cheek and promises a different celebration, “ _Later_.” Low enough for her ears only.

 And she’s back to recoiling again, the dessicated figure creeping back into her periphery.

 Still, she manages a smile and stays by his side.

 Tyler’s confident, happy tones. Of course he would be happy. He has every right to be happy.

  _She_ has no right to resent any of them, especially Tyler – the arm curling possessively, lovingly around her waist, nor resent the boast as he recounts his tale to Matt and Jeremy.

 She tries not to hear. It’s like all the buzzing in her head fades away too, determined to hear every word that solidfies Caroline’s course of action. Justifies her phone call to Rebekah and all the preparation for the rescue going on without her. She’s the decoy.

 Matt laughs knowingly, because he’s been there. Out of all of them, he was the first one to take down an Original and now Tyler (and Stefan and Damon) have joined that exclusive club. She snorts. What a club.

 Tyler glances at her oddly.

 Bet no one’s saved an Original before.

 Except Stefan. He always seems to be the exception to every rule. Hero and villain. But the okay kind. The kind that it is still okay to care for and save.

 Not that she cares for Klaus. Let’s get _that_ straight.

 “Don’t you think that you’ve had enough to drink, Caroline?” Matt asks suddenly when she reaches for another beer. Concerned. He’s always concerned about something. Even her. Even when he doesn’t want her, he is concerned.

 She can look at him now and feel no pang. Think of him now without any regret. She has been long used to squashing the dull ache that his presence always caused. Whatever the star-crossed epicness Tyler is supposed to be, Matt has still been there, lodged in a part of her heart that Tyler can’t reach. The human part of her frozen on that long ago night had frozen that love for him in her. Never quite requited. Never quite gotten over.

 Except that, try as she might, Caroline cannot not conjure up that old ache. Nor even the fear that she might have loved him more than Tyler.

 Where has that gone? Banished and dessicated as Klaus has been?

 “Caroline?” Tyler interrupts her thoughts.

 She starts, staring too long when she is supposed to answer. Matt holds up his own beer to remind her of the question, but she shakes her head. “Not nearly enough,” she says and hopes that her voice sounds steadier than her mind.

 “Don’t you think that you’re pushing it a little too hard, Care?” Tyler asks, frowning, and reaching for the bottle.

 “What?”

 “I think Tyler’s right Caroline,” Matt says.

 “I’m fine, guys, really. Just _celebrating_ ,” she still chokes on the word.

 Tyler looks at her oddly, slowly turning back to Matt, even while he passes a surreptitious glance in her direction again. At least he doesn’t take her beer.

 She twists off the metal cap forcefully, causing it to pop into the air like a champagne cork. She laughs at the irony. Is it irony? Champagne is for celebration, right?

 They are still looking at her.

 “Sorry, continue,” she says, magnanimously with a swing of her arm. She sways a little. And giggles.

 And Tyler does continue. Good little puppy, she thinks, half-resentfully, because the buzz of the alcohol is mixing with the buzz of Klaus in her brain and she’s starting to confuse the two. Vampires have an awfully large tolerance for alcohol, but Caroline just may have found it.

 She tries to listen to them just in case they ask her another question. She’s been living in her head too much at this party, but she keeps getting distracted by Jeremy staring at her intently. Like he sees something past her. His eyes narrowed.

 A horrible thought occurs to her.

 What if it isn’t only ghosts he sees? Does desseciation count? What if he sees Klaus talking inside her head?

 She wants to hyperventilate desperately, but she can’t give in. Not when they already stare at her like she’s gone mad.

 “Don’t you think it’s sad?” she blurts.

 All the chatter stilled, all around them room. The whole lot of them turn to her like she’s grown another head.

 Great Caroline, way to go, Caroline, she scolds herself.

 She hadn’t meant to say that, even if she thought it. But sometimes she has no impulse control and they should know that about her now. She says inappropriate things. It’s what she _does_.

 “Sad?” Tyler questions, though it sounds more like a demand.

 “I-I mean, isn’t it always sad when s-someone’s not … not missed.”

 “No,” he states emphatically. She can’t concentrate on anybody else’s reaction. Maybe Elena’s confused expression. Her damned soft heart.

 Tyler looks thunderous. His hybrid mercurial moods. Back to suspicious like he had been on the phone. And she hadn’t even done anything then.

 “I j-just mean …”

 “What?”

 “I know that he … was the enemy,” she states. “I j-just think it’s sad that we are celebrating that s-someone is gone.”

 “Oh Caroline,” Elena says, sweetly, entirely believing that Caroline only meant it innocently. After everything, it is still difficult for her to be suspicious of anyone.

 “It’s Klaus,” Tyler insists. End of argument.

 Except it seems to be the beginning of their argument.

 Caroline’s outburst aside, the party/hanging-out keeps on. Laughing and dancing. Even if Tyler keeps one suspicious eye on Caroline.

 The whole dam breaks when he’s recounting Klaus’s dessication to Matt _again_ , elaborating on a few details.

 “Oh my god,” Caroline interrupts. She’s had a few more drinks. “How many times do we have to hear this story? We get it. You are _The Man_. The hero. The end.”

 He jerks. “What _is_ your problem?”

 “ _This_ is my problem. I’m s-sick and tired of hearing the s-same damned story … over and over.” She turns to Jeremy. “You’re with me right? I mean, y-you don’t even _like_ Tyler.”

 “What the hell, Caroline?” Tyler demands.

 “I mean he tried to kill you once,” she insists, ignoring the fact that Jeremy slowly inches away from the couple.

 “I was under compulsion!”

 She scoffs. It isn’t reasonable, but she’s drunk and frustrated, so who cares?

 “From Klaus,” he adds.

 “It was S-Stefan anyway,” she insists, taking a step closer to him, suddenly completely infuriated that he’s taking credit for an act she can’t even agree with. “Stefan who … who…”

 “Who what?” Tyler says, lower, looking at her a little too closely. Only Elena, whose standing right by them, can hear. “You can’t even say it, can you Caroline?”

 She glares.

 “Say it!”

 “Fuck you!”

 “Guys,” Elena says tentatively, concerned. “Let’s not fight, okay? Not tonight.”

 “Oh, I’m not fighting,” Tyler replies, calmer.

 “What do you call this?” Caroline sneers.

 “We’ve been through enough today, right? Let’s just call it a night,” Elena says, snatching away Caroline’s half-empty beer before she can grab it.

 Caroline just watches Elena even as she feels Tyler’s glare like a burn.

 “I’m taking Caroline home,” he announces, “she’s obviously had too much to drink.”

 “I don’t need a des-designated driver, Tyler,” she slurs, “I w-walked here.”

 “I’m still taking you home. Alaric’s still out there.”

 “I can take care of myself.”

 “In this state?” he scoffs. “Get your jacket.”

 She does, but she flips him off while she’s at it.

 

* * *

* * *

 

The five-minute car ride might have been the most awkward she’s ever experienced, but she’s too boiling with rage to notice. So they sit, simmering inside, sending alternating glares the other’s way until Caroline’s teeth could rattle from the sheer force of irritation.

 She flashes inside before the car even rolls to a stop, slamming the front door behind her and hoping that he has the good sense not to follow.

 The door slams again.

 Damn. She should have locked it. If she had been sober, she might have thought of it. Then again, if she were sober, she would not be in this situation. Or, at least not this argument.

 She heads straight for her mother’s liquor cabinet, breaking open the lock and pulling out a large bottle of scotch.

 “What the fuck are you doing?” he says, harsh, exasperated. “This isn’t you, Caroline.”

 “Go home, Tyler.”

 “No, I want to know what is going on with you.”

 “There is nothing wrong me,” she insists, despite screwing off the bottle cap and taking a long swig of liquor.

 “Right. Of course. You just thought that the thing to do was to get massively drunk.”

 “I’m not m-massively,” she protests. Maybe not the best thing to focus on.

 He is silent for too long, watching her taking one, two more long drinks, brow furrowing even more with each lift of the bottle.

 “I was tortured today, Tyler. Give me a break.”

 His expression softens just a little.

 “S-sorry,” she says, “I’m just a bitch when I’m drunk.”

 “No, you’re not. Not usually. Usually you are a sad, weepy drunk.”

 “Well, t-today’s just a _s-special_ day,” she clarifies sarcastically.

 “Because of Klaus.” It’s not a question. None of the right words or thoughts are questions today. Like being happy that the villain is defeated. That should not be questionable.

 She starts, just a little. A human wouldn’t notice. “I was tortured.”

 “You’ve been tortured before and you’ve never acted this way,” he replies pitilessly.

 “Seriously?”

 He bends down next to her on the floor and takes the bottle away. “It’s the way you react to his name. Like you’ve been stabbed.”

 “Th-that’s ridic-rid … that’s stupid,” she finally sputters.

 “You said Klaus was the reason you couldn’t trust me,” Tyler continues as if he never heard her. “That you couldn’t be with me. So I broke the Sire bond _for you_. Endured hours of torture.”

 “See, it shouldn’t be f-for me. It should be for you.”

 He stands up abruptly, his hands in his pockets in a self-protective mode. “All the while you were dancing with him, taking gifts, flirting.” Disgusted.

 “There was never flirting,” she says emphatically. She really can’t deny the other things. She stands up too, because she feels too vulnerable with him towering above her.

 “I’m so fucking tired of this. Trying to be good enough for you and you just stab me in the back in the worst possible way.”

 “I never did anything with Klaus, Tyler. You have to know that.” She flinches, because that statement kind of stretches the truth. Calling Klaus’s siblings behind all their backs probably ranks right up there. Yeah, now she can add flat-out lying to her arsenal of sins tonight. And she cannot even come out and confess it, absolve herself or at least be fair to Tyler. Because it would compromise the rescue – and above everything, she is still absolutely certain that _that_ cannot happen.

 “He’s the monster that turned me into this! And you have the audacity to _mourn_ him. Like we all committed a crime. What the fuck is that?”

 “I’m just upset, Tyler!” she defends herself. “I’ve been tortured by the man who killed my father!”

 “But that’s not what you keep obsessing over! I’ve seen the way you look at him, Caroline.”

 “How?” It might have been a scoff, but it sounds more like a sigh. Like she’s just resigned to whatever turns this scene is going to take.

 “Like you can’t believe that someone like him wants you.”

 “Pshaw – yeah, ‘cause he’s a monster.”

 “That’s not it,” he insists. “You think I’m too stupid or blind to notice. You kept his drawing of you, Caroline, _by your bed_.”

 She doesn’t answer.

 He moves closer to her, his voice softer, but he doesn’t touch her. He hasn’t touched her since that too passionate kiss at Elena’s. When she tried to suck his face off like some fucking succubus. “I watched you at the dance, the way you are with him. You don’t even notice anyone else around you.” He pauses. “What is that? Tell me what that is, Caroline.”

 “I don’t know,” she admits. “I told you I don’t know why I kept that drawing.”

 “That’s … not what I’m asking.”

 “Then, what are you asking?”

 He paces in front of her, back and forth, back and forth, like a wolf; she watches the expressions dance about his face. Like he’s trying to get his thoughts and emotions in order. Something he’s never done before. She’s brought out this sadness in him that makes him guard himself around her. It makes her ache in a way that Tyler never has before. Not even when she saw the pain in his transformation. It’s different, because she caused it.

 “You don’t even see it. Not yet,” sadness creeping into his voice, finally deflated. “The way you look at him in awe. It’s … you’ve never looked at me like that, Caroline. Or even Matt. I’ve never seen you look at _anyone_ the way you look at Klaus.” He bites out the last word, _his_ name, spitting it like a curse.

 “That’s not true,” she begins to protest, but he ignores her.

 Angry again. Fierce. “But he’s gone now. Forever. And _you_ can be as angry as you like, because it won’t matter.” He glares at her again. “You’re are so fucked up you can’t even see straight, but one day you are going to realise that this was all for the best.”

 She glares right back at him. Attack her long enough (in the right or not) and she’ll turn it right back to you. “For the best? How can that be? Can you fucking see the future now, Tyler? Is that some damned hybrid skill? Because the last I checked, Alaric is now our greatest enemy and no matter what _you_ or anyone else thinks, Klaus might be the key in taking _him_ down.”

 “Might? Are you fucking delusional?” Tyler pauses again. “ _We_ will never know what Klaus might have done, because he is now _out of the equation_ ,” he shouts the last phrase. “No, you know what? Yes, we do know. He would have killed Elena and probably Damon too and me.”

 Tyler takes her chin roughly in his hand, not enough to hurt her, because he’d never hurt her. “Look at me, Caroline, for once this evening,” he sneers. A display of frustration that makes her curl her lips into a snarl. Once she might have been able to shrug him off, but his hybrid strength is too much, so she juts her chin out defiantly. “He’d save you, of course, until he’s fucking tired of you.”

 “Get out,” she sneers back.

 He lets her go, but still holds her gaze. “Whenever you are finished _mourning_ Klaus, don’t come crawling back to me. I’m done Caroline.”


	3. Chapter 3: the wild waters roar and heave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Thanks again to my beta Anastasia Dreams. And, also thanks to my reviewers.   
> Chessie really is a legend in the Chesapeake Bay. I think the legend is about 200 years old or thereabouts. Anyway, that’s what I always heard as a child. I really tried to do justice to the actual Bay, but I haven’t been there in a while and I haven’t lived in the area in years – so I’m taking this from memory.
> 
> The mention of the Gilberts’ boat, the Zypher, is a nod to my grandfather’s old boat. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Chapter 3: the wild waters roar and heave**

_And even at the bottom of the sea_  
I could still hear inside my head  
Telling me, touch me, feel me  
~ Alicia Keys, “Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart”

* * *

_  
  
_ A benefit of being a vampire? The rarity of hangovers.  
  
Caroline probably would have awakened on the floor of her bathroom, lips cracked, and head splitting if she had been human.  
  
Or been rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.  
  
Instead, she feels mildly unsettled when she wakes and more than a little hungry. Her throat burns, dry and hot, like it’s closing together, her esophagus sticking shut. She coughs, but the air makes it worse. It parches even her nostrils. She hates that – being so thirsty that her entire body just dries up. Like she should be shriveled.  
  
With a groan, she rolls out of the bed and speeds downstairs, sighing in relief when she finds two bags of A- left. Her favourite.  
  
Only after draining the last bag does she allow herself to think about yesterday’s events. About Klaus. What she has done.  
  
Her eyes sting.  
  
She has to stamp down the guilt. Turn it off.  
  
She can’t afford crazy today.   
  
Remember to breathe, she tells herself, to keep the crazy at bay.  
  
4:02 a.m.  
  
She’s got about forty minutes until Rebekah arrives and way too much to do to wallow now. She’ll think about that later.  
  
About Tyler later too.  
  
Tyler hates her now, and that’s the only thought she can’t shove away.  
  
When she turns to trail up the stairs, she sees the mark in the wooden floor where her glass had broken last night. Just a small mark. Her eyes flicker to the broken lock of the liquor cabinet, metal twisted together to hold it back together again. A quick fix so Liz won’t notice. At least not immediately. That’s the last thing she needs.  
  
She’d turned right back to alcohol after Tyler left, gulping too much down again. Alone and crying. The heartbreak of Tyler, one of the last vestiges of her human life irreparably broken. They had been unwilling monsters together, but they had been human too, and no one else would be able to understand that peculiar kind of hysteria in adapting to a new life. Not even Stefan who had welcomed the transition though he deplored it now.   
  
It was also the first moment that she absolutely realised that things would never be the same.  
  
She can’t go back. Even through her foggy mind, she recognises that she can never go back.  
  
And not just to Tyler.  
  
She still wants to reel, just like last night when Tyler had phoned. _Klaus is defeated_ and her whole world shifted.  
  
She just wishes that she knew why.  
  
_It won’t be enough for you_.  
  
She still hears Klaus in her mind. Has constantly since that one phone call.  
  
She wishes she could turn that off too.  
  
She dreamed too much of that dessicated face.   
  
Except this time it’s her own voice crying _What did you do?_ in her head.  
  
Caroline shakes her head and speeds past that mark on the floor. Like it accuses her too.  
  
In the shower, she closes her eyes against the hot water. It helps not to cry when all she wants to do is sob.  
  
_Perhaps one day_ , just in her ear. Like he’s right next to her. She can almost feel his breath against her lobe. Just like the dance when she almost admitted yes, perhaps one day.  
  
She presses her palms against her eyes and swallows something that could be a sob. Maybe a moan. Even her emotions can’t decide which way to turn.  
  
She shuts the water off so quickly that she nearly dislodges the showerhead.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 Stefan is there when she sneaks outside, careful not to wake her mother.  
  
She starts. He knows, she thinks. There could be no other reason for him to be here, so solemn and worried, and still a bit off. He’s still not completely Stefan.  
  
“Elena is concerned about you,” he says.  
  
Caroline closes her eyes against the brief pain. “I know.”  
  
She still hears Klaus in her mind saying that he will save Elena.  
  
And then he almost killed her, she keeps reminding herself – as well as the Klaus-voice in her mind.  
  
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says. “It’s still dark out and it’s too dangerous. Alaric is still out there.”  
  
“I am exactly where I should be,” he insists.  
  
She glances down the street, and resists the urge to check her watch. Rebekah should be here at any minute. It would be bad for everyone involved if Stefan should still be here.  
  
“What do you want, Stefan?” she asks. Better over and done with. Like a bandaid.  
  
She keeps a careful distance, just out of his arm’s reach. A safe barrier. Because she’s afraid that the slightest touch will make her reel and crumble, and bring up the onslaught of emotions she’s trying to swallow.  
  
“I think that you’re making a mistake.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Are you going to save Klaus?” he asks, point blank. Because even partially-off Stefan is still too blunt.  
  
“What makes you think so?” Deflecting. She’s very good at that.  
  
“Elena overheard your fight with Tyler,” he begins, “but then, you knew that.” He pauses for a moment, his voice softer, kinder like the Stefan who told her she’d be alright when she turned. “He saved your life, didn’t he?”  
  
As if that could be the only explanation for her behaviour, and the one that she so desperately clings to herself.  
  
She looks up and into his eyes then, for the first time, and she sees his own uncertainty and pain. She can’t answer, because, really, he has said it all.  
  
“Stefan, don’t –”   
  
She reaches out for Stefan’s hand, piercing through that invisible barrier she had made to protect her crumbling sanity. His pain makes her own less able to hurt her, makes her less afraid that she is slipping further away from the humanity that she so cherishes. Because if not-quite-Ripper Stefan can feel pain, there is hope for her. So, she holds his hand, wonderingly, because now she knows. This hand had been against _his_ chest, pushing, straight into _his_ heart. Had started it all. And she can feel death in it too. And pain. Different than her own. Stefan’s conflicted, tortured eyes, finally admitting what Klaus had known all along – that they had been real friends once. She could see it in his eyes now. He had to do it. She _knows_ this and she can’t be bitter because it pains him. As it pains her, even if differently. And if nothing else, she can always trust Stefan’s pain.  
  
He won’t be triumphant either.  
  
He will not ask her not to do it. It is not Stefan’s way. But he will bring up Elena, whose very name is like a knife in her heart right then. The one weapon he could wield without seeming to wield any.  
  
She would do anything for Elena. She still will, but this doesn’t have anything to do with Elena. Not at its core. It’s just that some vital part of her needs Klaus back.  
  
“I’ll fix it. I’ll make it alright,” she promises.  
  
“Caroline, you can’t think that you can fix this. You can’t fix everything.”  
  
She knows this too. There are some things that can’t be fixed. She is one of them. But she wouldn’t be Caroline if she didn’t try.  
  
“You know that Klaus will go after her as soon as he wakes,” he reasons.  
  
“Stefan, I’ve said all these things already to myself.”  
  
“Then why?”  
  
She’s already been asking herself this. Kol and Rebekah are still asking her this. But Stefan may understand more than anyone else. He is good at that, and he is pained too, if not conflicted in his decision. She owes him something honest before all hell breaks loose. “It’s like …” Her hand flutters over her heart without her notice. But Stefan notices and his expression softens just a little, like it had when he had been her mentor and anchor in her new life. Her Stefan and not Ripper Stefan. “There’s something messed up inside.”  
  
She drops her arm back down to her side. She can’t say more. It’s just too much and she needs to focus. Instead, she clears her throat and continues a different line, steady this time, “He may be the originator of our bloodline. Do you really think that it is wise to have him helpless while Alaric is still out there?”  
  
“Klaus would be hidden, Caroline. Alaric couldn’t get to him.”  
  
“You don’t know that he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t it be better to have him working with us?”  
  
Stefan presses the bridge of his nose. “Look Caroline – I know that Klaus – he’s never going to work _with_ us. He always has a plot in hand. He’ll drain Elena to make his hybrids and that’s how he will get rid of Alaric. Do you really want that to happen?”  
  
“Of course not, Stefan. I’ll find another way.”  
  
“What other way?”  
  
Caroline chews her lip. A thought has been running in her mind since Tyler had told her what Klaus had done – and why. It is completely horrible and she is a horrible person and quite possibly on her way down that slippery slope, but it is the only solution that she can think of that keeps them all alive. Except she can’t tell him or even hear herself say the words. A line too far and she can’t cross it. She hopes she never can. _What if Elena is a vampire?_ can never be an acceptable solution. It just can’t.  
  
“You can’t think about trusting him, Caroline. He might like you, but never enough to give up Elena.”  
  
And that’s the crux of the matter isn’t it? That’s how it always goes for Caroline.  
  
People care, but never enough to give up Elena.  
  
Her eyes sting, but she can’t let Stefan know how much she feels the truth of his words and how much they hurt.  
  
“Maybe not,” she admits, “but it’s something, isn’t it?”  
  
“He doesn’t trust anyone Caroline.”  
  
“And why would he?” she counters. She barely trusts anyone herself. But saving him will go a long way. She should know.  
  
“I can’t let you do this Caroline,” Stefan says and moves a step forward, grabbing her upper arm.   
  
She jerks back, away from him, putting a few more feet of safer distance between them. In the distance, she hears a car rolling up, and sighs in a mix of relief and anxiety. That would be Rebekah.  
  
Stefan is far too old and too strong for her, and she doesn’t quite trust him in anything that concerns Elena – at least if he perceives her on his opposite side. As a threat. She might be nervous, but she cannot help anger as well. As if he has the right to any of her actions. The Salvatores always think they know best. She may love Stefan as a friend, but it rankles. Like Damon warning her away from Tyler. She will always react against that smothering. “Let me?” she hisses. “Let? Are you kidding me?”  
  
Stefan takes a step backwards, eyes troubled, realising that she will never listen now. She had not with Tyler. She will not with Klaus.  
  
Caroline always wants to rescue something. It’s like a thing with her.  
  
“I mean I won’t let you,” he counters, flip switched and eyes harsh. Almost Ripper Stefan again. To her.   
  
“I will do this Stefan, with your blessing or not,” she reiterates. “It’s ... the right thing to do. He was our ally and he saved me.”  
  
“Do you even hear what you are saying?” he demands. “You would throw us all over for him, Caroline?”  
  
She shakes her head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with any of you.”  
  
“You’re blind if you think that’s the case,” he says.  
  
“Don’t you see, Stefan? You all went off-course. You were supposed to stop Alaric.”  
  
Stefan starts, staring with wide eyes as if he cannot understand and fears some new side of her.   
  
_They_ went off-course? she can almost hear him think.  
  
She’s so far off-course she might as well be in Texas. She _knows_ this. But at least she can admit it.  
  
Caroline hates the way that he looks at her now – like he’s unsure of her, like he can never trust her again. Because of Elena. Because of Klaus. She’s doing this for all the wrong reasons, but all the right ones too. But she’s fractured something irreplaceable too. For Klaus.  
  
“Elena would never forgive me if you did this and something happened. To you or to anyone one.”  
  
“Stefan, she’ll forgive _you_ anything. She already has.” Caroline will have to work for it and deservedly so.   
  
A car door slams shut behind them, and Caroline turns to see Rebekah leaning against the driver’s side. Eyebrow raised questioningly, but she doesn’t move over to the pair standing on the porch.  
  
Caroline turns away from Stefan without a word. What else can she say?  
  
He grabs her arm as she leaves. “You know I’ll try to stop you.” She still won’t look at him.  
  
“I suggest,” Rebekah calls, “that you focus your energy on our mutual, real enemy at the moment Stefan.”  
  
Caroline shrugs him off, but softens her leave-taking. “I’m sorry, Stefan.”   
  
Just as she turns, Rebekah flashes over, the whiplash movement of an Original, only barely disturbing the air around them. Stefan never even sees it coming. Behind him and a quick clean twist and snap. Sickening. Falling down between them with a harsh thud.  
  
Caroline stands stock still for a moment. “Rebekah!” It would be an admonishment, but the shock makes the tone too soft and too shrill at once. “You can’t do that!”  
  
“But I can. Stefan would have followed us and we can’t take any chances, Caroline. Surely, you recognize that.” She turns to leave, flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder. Caroline only sees her in the periphery, her eyes still trained on Stefan.  
  
Vampires are too quick to snap one another’s necks.  
  
And it’s Stefan. She says this aloud to Rebekah who ignores her.  
  
“We’ve got to get him inside,” Caroline insists, bending down to take Stefan’s too limp arms.   
  
“Why?”  
  
“It’s dangerous right now. The sun’s not quite out.”  
  
Rebekah shakes her head. “He deserves to be staked by Alaric, Caroline.”  
  
“I can’t leave him here,” Caroline insists. “If you don’t help me, it will only take me longer. Now get the door.”

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Rebekah’s already settled and buckled in the driver’s seat by the time Caroline locks her front door and slides into the passenger seat. “Seatbelt,” she says.  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
Rebekah stares pointedly. “Yes, seatbelt. I can’t stand that dinging sound when a seatbelt is unbuckled.”  
  
Caroline snorts, but complies. She glances up to see where Stefan had been, where he might have watched them move out of sight then tell on her. Sick Damon and her mother on her. She won’t think that perhaps it _had_ been better for them (as in Caroline and her little trio of ne’er do wells), for Rebekah to have done what she did.  
  
What kind of fucked up priorities is that?  
  
Rebekah glances over to her as she speeds down the street. “So Stefan Salvatore strikes again,” she says, “at least we’ve stopped him for now. I wonder what he’ll do when he wakes?”

 Caroline sighs. She really doesn’t want to think about Stefan right now or what lies in store for herself after all this is over. Elena’s crumbled and betrayed features flash through her mind. Bonnie’s confused and angry stare. And Tyler ... no, she just can’t.

 They all make her want to stop the car, or just open the door and fling herself out, beside the road, all scraped up and bleeding. She deserves that.

  _If that is what you want_ , his voice so clear that she squeezes her eyes shut irrationally – whether to shut the voice out entirely or to concentrate on the cadence, she cannot tell. She bites her lip, and takes a deep breath. Steady, she whispers to herself.

 Rebekah still watches her from the corner of her eye, even as she speeds into the already-heavy I-95 traffic. “I imagine he’ll put some stupid, half-thought plan into action. Try to stop us,” Rebekah answers herself, ignoring Caroline’s detour into madness. Right. They had been talking about Stefan.

 Rebekah laughs. “At least we have that. Salvatore plans are usually monumentally stupid and doomed to failure.”

 “Yes,” Caroline agrees, a little shakily. “They usually are.” But it doesn’t seem fair to mock them now when she’d betrayed them and Stefan’s neck had been snapped for her actions.

 “Second guessing yourself?”

 Caroline also can’t bear to appear weak. Even when she is. So, she bucks up, straightens in her seat. “No,” she insists, a little too quickly. She sounds unsure even if she isn’t. Unsure about this. It _feels_ right and precious little has felt right since the day she turned.

 The saving of someone is right.

 Even if that someone is Klaus. Of that, she is absolutely clear.

 She’s still tense and anxious and worn and slightly reeling, but there is a calmness in her decision. Like some vital part of her agrees with her actions.

 The betrayal rankles, makes the bile rise in her throat.

 She’s Caroline and she’s loyal.

 It’s just feels like some part of her identity is fractured.

 “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m doing this,” she adds.

 Rebekah nods, turning her eyes back to the road, evidently satisfied with Caroline’s answer for now. She zips through the trucks like they are inanimate objects and Caroline leans over to check her speed. 135 miles-per-hour.

 Her eyes widen. They are vampires, yes, but this car will never survive a crash. “I hope you know what you are doing,” she says, a little worriedly.

 “‘Course. I used to drive all the time. Nik is an excellent teacher.”

 “In the 1920s! That’s been like a billion years ago.”

 Rebekah rolls her eyes. “Which was a second ago for me.”

 “Did cars even go so fast then?” she asks, a little shrilly.

 “Relax, Caroline. Vampire reflexes, remember?” Rebekah smiles. “We’ll get there just fine.”

 “I think I should drive.”

 Rebekah protests, “Not a chance. I know where we’re going.”

 Rebekah zooms past a FedEx delivery truck, just barely crossing the line and missing. Caroline grips the door handle tightly until it molds to her hand. She frowns. “Where is that?”

 “Kol tracked Damon last night to just outside Quantico Marine Base,” she explains, “He’s been getting a few needed supplies.”

 That is another point of worry for Caroline.

 

* * *

* * *

 

Dressed all in black, Kol lounges on the railing of a dock as they arrive. The sun rises behind him, reflecting off the choppy water and casting him in shadow. Sinister. He has a flare for that.

 “Dressed for the occasion, I see,” Rebekah remarks.

 Kol smiles disarmingly. “Why yes, sister, I am. We are body-snatchers after all.” He steps towards them, and though Caroline hardly knows him, she instantly recognises the excited gleam in his eyes – so casually cruel. He may care for his brother and want to save him, but he also loves the thrill of the hunt. A true predator. No slick and suave approach. Nothing of Elijah in him, though he has the wildness of Klaus.

 He makes her uneasy.

 Kol turns to Caroline with a leer. “I wasn’t sure that you would actually turn up.”

 “I always keep my word,” she says, glaring at him just because – well because he was Kol. The one person for whom she can maintain anger without any sort of effort. Or any sort of guilt. It is a nice release.

 “Perhaps,” he says. “What a loyal little thing you’ve turned out to be.” He nods towards a small vessel, carrying various sorts of high-tech equipment, suspiciously resembling a US navy vessel.

 “Oh no,” Caroline murmurs. “Tell me you didn’t highjack a military boat.”

 Kol’s grin widens.

 Rebekah shoves him. “You were supposed to be discreet Kol,” she admonishes. She still smiles a little, impressed by his pull. “You always were a show-off,” she continues fondly.

 “You said we needed adequate equipment,” he reasons.

 “But not military grade,” Caroline argues, moving forward. Her hand twitches to smack the back of his head.

 “It is the best, darling, isn’t it?”

 “Kol, how do you think that we are going to use all this?” Rebekah asks with a sweep of her arm.

 He winks at them. Actually winks.  

 “Gentlemen,” he calls. Two servicemen appear on deck, wearing work uniforms.

 Caroline would recognise that blank stare anywhere. “Did you _compel_ naval officers, Kol?” she asks in disbelief.

 “I did,” he answers, gloating.

 “That is just _all_ kinds of wrong.”

 He shrugs.

 “Nice,” Rebekah remarks, moving towards the vessel.

 “It is not nice, Rebekah,” Caroline insists, though she follows nonetheless. “It’s like a federal crime.”

 “I’m sure it’s not,” she answers.

 Kol agrees, “I seriously doubt that there is a law against compulsion anywhere.”

 She really needs to hit him. Very hard. Preferably with his own bat.

 “How else did you think that we were going to run all this?” he retorts, too reasonably.

 

* * *

* * *

 

Caroline has not been to the Chesapeake Bay since she became a vampire, but growing up it had been a weekend treat. She used to come here often with Elena and Jeremy and their parents, playing in their old, beaten sloop. Jeremy would scare them with tales of the Bay monster Chessie, cousin to that Scottish monster. He’d be on a mission to find it, tie an old water-proof camera to a fishing line, hoping for a glimpse.

 How ironic that she’s the one still looking for a monster.

 The waters were friendly, if choppy then, and the briny air seemed fresh, the spray welcome against her face when Grayson let out the sail and they caught wind.

 The waters meant freedom.

 That sloop is now probably rotting in the Gilbert garage, or perhaps Elena long ago sold it, unable to face the emptiness of that boat without her father.

 Caroline hasn’t really even thought of the _Zypher_ in years, and it is certainly nothing like the cold, business-like and too-orderly deck that she and Rebekah currently stand upon. Leaning over and gazing at the too rocky waters, glinting dark green and blue and grey. As if they could see through all the muck and silt. It could be thirty feet or a hundred feet or more.

 Even vampire vision cannot penetrate the waters, no matter how much they will it.

 But they still stand side-by-side, gazing intently.

 Every once in a while, the slapping water at the side sends up sprays of salt water, burning their eyes and nostrils.

 She used to love that scent, but now it is too much.

 The wind picks back up, throwing their hair up in billows and tangling in their eyes. Caroline takes a couple hair ties from her pocket, silently handing one to Rebekah, and turns back to look at the small cabin where Kol and the officers huddle around the sonar equipment.

 There has been no sign of his coffin – just the dull silt floor. She and Rebekah had watched for awhile, but left together, unable to bear seeing the desolate terrain. It is too sandy and they are too far out for even the leafy seaweed and other plants to break the scene.

 Caroline cannot bear the thought that this could be anyone’s fate for eternity. Even Klaus. Maybe especially Klaus.

 She’s given up trying to discern any sense in her rambling thoughts or denying any part of her feelings. She just cannot bear the thought of him dessicated – or worse yet, ceasing to exist. That’s it. No more.

 The waters are rocky, even for the Chesapeake, today.

 Finding anything is tricky, say the officers, raising anything worse, they say. Kol always reminds them nonsense. _They_ don’t have to worry about danger, he says, though the officers do. He smiles when the men turn back to their task, uneasy about some unknown danger and properly compelled to their task at hand.

 He _knows_ that Klaus was dropped here.

 Rebekah is impatient and fractious and mocks him.

 Caroline ignores their constant bickering.

 It is not yet even mid-day, far from it, but it seems like hours and hours – days since she heard the news.

 The boat sways too greatly with each swell, and making it difficult for even vampires to keep their balance. For one long moment, Caroline actually fears that they will capsize, be dumped into the waters with Klaus. But finally, the wind quiets for awhile, and the searching begins in earnest again.

 She stays on deck with Rebekah, out of the way of the officers and Kol. Mostly because Kol’s nervous energy makes her own apprehension worse. She watches them ready the submersible for a better look against the underwater cliffs. Thousands of years ago, long before the Original Family were even a thought, the bay had been a valley, and it remains a valley now beneath the water. The cliffs cast shadow, which makes it very difficult to locate an object even as conspicuous as a coffin.

 But Rebekah has been watching her chew her lips and grasp the metal railing until it bends. “How strange,” she murmurs.

 Caroline glances at her companion, “what?”

 “You’ve been scheming and plotting for months to be rid my brother,” she says without malice, “but here you are playing the heroine _for him_. It is almost romantic.”

 Caroline scoffs. “It’s not _romantic_. There is nothing romantic about this.”

 Rebekah only raises an eyebrow, too serene. But she can afford to be serene. Rebekah risks nothing in this expedition.

 Caroline can lose everything.

 “Nik has a way of getting under your skin, making you care far more than is reasonable or healthy,” she says, leaning against the railing.

 Caroline doesn’t even know what to say. “It’s not like that.”

 “Oh?”

 “Then tell me truly, and leave out all that nonsense about allies, Caroline. The Salvatores also have an annoying way of coming out relatively on top when need be, however inconvenient it may be for the rest of us.”

 She glares at Rebekah. “Why should I tell you anything?”  


“No reason,” she answers, “except I’m curious.” Rebekah pauses to tie her hair away from her face. “I’m grateful, of course, for the heads up.”

 Caroline turns back to the cabin, watching Kol and the officers huddle around a screen, determined to avoid Rebekah’s question. She doesn’t even know how to answer. There is so much loaded into that question, it is like navigating a minefield and she has no protection. She doesn’t trust Rebekah, or anyone really, with any of the warring emotions strangling her and making her crazy.

 “Nik is going to be quite intrigued by this development, I think,” Rebekah ventures after a moment.

 “What do you mean by that?”

 “Oh I think you know what I mean. He’ll be more determined than ever.”

 Caroline will not listen to the Klaus voice in her head, whispering all those promises of a future at the decade dance. More like a threat. He’s tilted her world from its axis, just a little at a time since the night she drank his blood. And now she’s completely off, just because he’s not here. It is not normal. She knows it’s not normal.

 She certainly doesn’t need Rebekah’s smirking words to point it out.

 “You don’t want him back for anything else,” Rebekah says with some conviction, “You want him back for you.”

 

* * *

* * *

 

In a weird sort of surreal way, it’s just like those old days on the Chesapeake when the officers shout that they’ve found something. Just like Jeremy when he managed to capture a picture of a fish. She half-expects a following disappointment when the monster is not found. Chessie has eluded them again.

 Except it doesn’t happen. In a flurry, they ready a crane and Kol actually climbs onto it to descend into the water himself. She and Rebekah are crushed against the other railing, watching intently, holding breaths they do not need.

 Time moves even slower, and they are still and silent, gazing down at the spot where Kol disppeared and where a thick metal, coil-like rope attached to the crane snakes into the water. Jerking and bobbing down to him.

 Caroline feels every cell in her body jerking and bobbing down with it, like some fiber of her heart’s muscle is coiled down into it, tethering her to the crane as well. It’s ridiculous, really, because her heart doesn’t beat or work at all anymore. And if it did, it certainly would not beat to him.

 How absurd.

 She grimaces at a particular lurch in the cord, signifying that they’ve hit bottom. She should not have allowed Rebekah to talk her into staying on deck to wait and to keep the officers in line if need be.

 Except that the images are always worse in her mind – the coffin knocked to its side and sand already swallowing the wood and its occupant up, greying skin peaking through. Really, there would not have been time for that, but that image is what she sees behind her eyelids. She doesn’t want any sort of confirmation that it is true or that the scene is even worse.

 So, she lets Kol descend alone.

 Her Klaus voice is silent on that point, but she can still feel his breath against her ear.

 He lies just sixty feet down.

 Sixty feet.

 That’s hardly anything at all.

 Their monster is found this time.

 She might be smiling. She could be smiling. Her mind is a whirl, and the only thing that Caroline can properly focus on is that her Klaus voice is silent.

 Probably because he is here.

 And then time seems to stop. It’s taking too long, and she and Rebekah both fidget and glare unreasonably at the officers, whose compelled demeanours do not seem to understand their urgency or their anguish.

 Nothing breaks the surface, except for the faint, pricking breeze causing the water to slap against the vessel’s sides. The cord only sways a little, and even that might be the current, the competing directions of both salt and freshwater surging into the Bay. It makes the Chesapeake temperamental at times, and causes Caroline’s nerves to fray even more.

 She should have gone down with Kol. She’s grown up with the Chesapeake. She knows this water almost as much as she knows the streets and walkways of Mystic Falls. She’s been diving here, and even knows some part of those worn-rock cliffs, jutting across the floor at intervals.

 “I should go down there,” she insists suddenly, breaking their tension-filled silence.

 “Kol is perfectly capable of attaching the crane to the coffin, Caroline,” Rebekah replies, still watching the officers milling about. “I hope that Kol’s compulsion holds. It’s been a while since he’s done it.”

 Caroline points to the swaying and jerking rope. “See,” she says, and Rebekah turns her gaze to the water again, “the current is not helping. I’m going down there.”

 “If one of us must go,” Rebekah answers, “it should be me. I’m his sister.”

 “But I _know_ the Bay.”

 “And I don’t?”

 “You knew it a thousand years ago. It’s different now.” Caroline slips off her shoes and jacket, and grabs the extra light. “You stay with the officers.” She begins to climb over the railing.

 “Caroline –”

 Rebekah’s reply is cut off by a splash as Caroline dives in near the disappearing cord. She grabs hold of it, briefly, to gain her bearings, grateful that she is unaffected by the chilly water. Her eyes sting, but she forces them to remain open. It is still light enough to see fish swimming around her and when she concentrates she can see the faint shadowed outline of a larger bull or great white shark some distance away, snatching a seagull resting on the surface.

 She may be a vampire, but she still fears _that_ creature.

 She turns away from the sight, carefully training her hearing to detect the subtle give of water around her, a soft gurgling of fish and jellyfish flitting about, and the rocking vessel above her. Even with heightened vampire senses, hearing underwater takes some adjustment.

 Dolphins cackle in the distance, chattering to one another freely, giving her a burst of courage.

 She shines the light downwards and swims in that direction, keeping the cord within reaching distance to navigate properly. At first, it is unnecessary as the bright, early morning sun penetrates the surface far deeper than she would expect, but as she descends, the scene is darker, and the light only gives her a radius of some 15-20 feet. A muted dull grey scene. Not the inky blackness of those Titanic documentaries that she devoured as a child.

 The increasing weight of the water pressures, squeezes against her. She’s never been so far down to feel the moment when the resistance to float back to the surface gives, and, instead, it pushes her further down. Millions and millions of gallons of water. All that weight. If she had been human, her lungs would collapse.

 She can see more clearly all the sediment and organisms floating around her in the artificial light. The water is heavier here, grittier. When she moves her arms to propel herself downwards, she hears the movement more loudly for that grit.

 Creepy, even for her.

 She nearly expects that old scaly dragon-like creature of legend to pop up beside her.

 After a short while, she swats away a small school of fish, dividing as they dart around her, and she spots the anchor-like fastenings of the crane – and Kol, bending over something.

 The current should be stiller at such depth. It would be in many other places. But she can feel the waters pushing against one another, and even with her strength, it is difficult to work against it, to push downwards and up when the water pushes you out to sea or inwards towards the shore.

 He has set up several underwater lights which cast him in shadow and when he turns, she sees the coffin behind him, lying perfectly – unopened and undisturbed.

 She swears her heart begins to beat again, thump, thump, a faster staccato rhythm as she moves closer.

  _It's me, it's okay. You're safe._

 She still feels Klaus catching her in that hallway of the high school and how she sagged against him. She almost wishes that she could do the same with him. Almost. But there will be time later, for all her fucked up emotions and thoughts and warring voices in her head.

 Kol frowns, but readily accepts her help in fastening the hooks to various points on the coffin, working as quickly as they can against the current and the pressure. Her hands tremble all the while, but she pushes on. They tie the lights to the coffin as well, giving them a lighted pathway to the top so that they could swim to the surface unencumbered.

 When they are ready, they pull against the cord sharply, letting Rebekah and the officers know to pull Klaus to the surface.

 They are raising him, reeling him in just like a shark, except they emerge with the coffin too, Kol grinning like the nutcase that he is. He even lets Rebekah hug him before pushing off and yanking away the chains. She even hugs Caroline, who starts and hugs her back briefly. They are all yanking at the chains and pulling up the lid.

_You’re safe_ , she whispers. Her voice and not Klaus echoing this time.

 The only thing that Caroline can think is that the world has gone still. Finally.


	4. Chapter 4: a new life beginning on a stranger shore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Thanks again to my beta Anastasia Dreams, and to everyone who favourited this story or put it on their story alerts. It was originally supposed to have a sequel, and perhaps it may someday if I can ever get over the bitterness towards this show.
> 
> The superstition of the dead’s jealousy over the living’s breath is a very old superstition in Chesapeake Bay area. Or, at least I think so. My great-grandmother told me about that superstition when I was a child, but she did love her ghost stories. She was born in 1890 and died at 101 years old when I was ten. So, I guess that makes it an old superstition anyway, doesn’t it?
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Chapter 4: a new life beginning on a stranger shore**

_But come what will, to the last agony,_  
My choice is made; I cannot yield thee up.  
~ H.C.C., “Guinevere to Lancelot”

* * *

 

A soft click behind her and Caroline is alone with Klaus.  Lying immobile, limp, and still sickeningly grey.  On a bed in a house that they’ve commandeered from the naval officer that they’ve kidnapped.  She is going to hell for so many reasons. 

She still hasn’t taken a step closer.  All her childhood fear of the dead is rushing back.  She tries not to take another deep breath.  She cannot bear the vaguely damp scent of the sea still clinging to him, salty and sweet.  Brine and decay.  Death too real.  She’s always hated that.  Especially since she stumbled over Vicky, way too far gone.  

When Grandma Forbes died, Caroline had cried and hid in the foyer of the church until her father ordered the coffin closed.  But she could see the waxy figure – so unlike her grandmother’s warm expression – behind her eyes for months.  She had been seven.  No amount of comfort from Mom or Daddy or Father Paul could ease the fear of that dead creature.  For years, she held her breath as she passed the cemetery on the way to school for fear that the dead would rise, jealous of her breath.  She could thank Tyler for that superstition. 

And now Caroline is dead forever.

 Has been surrounded by it, caused it too.  

She fears the permanent death even more, like Vicky’s decayed face, unrecognisable, and too horrible for even a vampire to contemplate. 

She nearly darts away from the grey figure she’s been desperately trying to save.  Klaus.  It is hard to think his name, and even a little difficult to connect him to that too waxen figure caught between undeath and permanent death.  She holds the breath she doesn’t need, afraid that he might steal that from her as he had stolen her peace and half her sanity. 

Faint knocking and steps downstairs, too loud and they nearly echo.  She glances anxiously towards the body that she’s supposed to be guarding.  Clop, clop, bang.  Kol, Rebekah, the soldier Kol has stolen.  She still won’t learn his name.  It is easier that way.  Oh what they could do to him, what Kol might have in store for him.  Caroline is spunky and sure of her morals, even in fear, but she knows that she is no match for Kol. 

She steps forwards, a faint creak under her sneakers.  She hates these old houses sometimes and all their groans.  They always seem haunted even when they’re not.  It is foolish to be afraid of a spirit now when she’s the only dead thing here.  In this room.  And Klaus.  He’s too dead.  If anyone haunts, it’s them.  Creeping around and stealing life when they can.  Taking warmth where they can.  When you’re undead, everything is stolen. 

Klaus is too still, she thinks.  He’s supposed to be not-quite-dead.  So she moves to investigate.  Just to make sure.  Except, how does one check?  There’s no pulse or breath or warmth. 

If he were dead, dead, Tyler would be too, and she would know it.  Wouldn’t she?  Even now, she’d know that he was dead. 

Or that Klaus is. 

She had shuddered when they had lifted Klaus onto the bed and one arm had fallen loose and dangled.  Sickly.  Her lips had touched it once and she fancies, even now, that she can tell just where she had bit down and moaned at the rush of his blood.

  _There you go, sweetheart. Have at it._

 She hears him over and over in her mind.

 Her head tilts, wondering suddenly, is it in her mind only?  Or had he planted them there?  Did some part of him remain awake enough to steal into her mind, so that she hears his words like a chant or a litany.  Over and over.  Nearly every word he has ever said to her.

 In her mind, he always ends with, “What did you do?”  Since last night, she’s heard it, dreamed it.  Outside the Mystic Grill again.  The dessicated figure in her dreams offering his pouring heart, dripping blood all over her room and the drawing by her bed.  _What did you do?_

 She wonders, does he know?  Does he know that she threw a party for this?  Or that she betrayed her friends, even now questions her motives and sanity?

 Her Klaus voice keeps whispering why.

 Before she realises it, she’s by the bed, staring down into his ghoulish face.  Even his hair has lost all colour and shine.  Not even dirty blond or the copper tint that she’s noticed more than she would like.  He still wears the clothing he had worn to save her.  She reaches out, trembling, because she’s never really touched him except in dance or in safety.  All the relief when they had opened his coffin to find him undamaged flits away, perhaps downstairs with Kol or Bekah as they searched for and prepared the bloodbags to wake him and rang Elijah for Mystic Falls updates. 

She can’t seem to call it back or settle her thoughts against the constant stream of Klaus in her head.

_It's me, it's okay. You're safe._

Shouldn’t that be her line?

She grasps the arm that saved her, just where her bite might be, feels the limp weight of it, heavy and steady against her shaking, as it had been just yesterday when he pressed her against him.

_You’re safe_.

Shouldn’t she say it now?

When she closes her eyes, she fancies that she can see the moment that dessication moved into him.  Slowly.  Stunned and vulnerable.  She’s heard all the triumphant stories of Tyler and Stefan and Damon holding him back.  Of Stefan’s hand.  How Klaus had trembled at the force of it.

That should not be so, she whispers.  Of all the madness of the last few days, that’s the one thing of which she’s absolutely sure.  It should not be so, and she starts at the sound of her own voice – too loud and she’s only whispered.  Has he heard?  _Can_ he hear? 

Did he hear the splash and plunk when Damon threw him overboard or the clinking chains when they raised him?  The slick suctioning when Kol had thrown the coffin open and water gushed out?

People always say that hearing is the last to go.  The thought of those sounds being his last causes the bile to rise in her throat and she takes a gasping breath she didn’t want or need.  She’s reeling again.  The dampness and salt fill her nose, burning, as though she has inhaled the salt water directly.

She grimaces, but does not move away.

Caroline is acutely aware of the paralleled irony here, of their reversed roles.  He’d come into her room and into her life, the not-quite-hero monster and stared at her and touched her and gave her blood and made her question the life she’s led.  Now she’s saved him back.

He had examined her wound, hadn’t he?  All pensive and gentle.  As if he hadn’t in some way been at fault.

There is some cartharsis there.  In acting the healer, yes, warming the guilt away.  Though he had never felt guilt.  She does.  She nearly chokes with it.  What she’s done for him, against him.  It knocks about her insides, but she wouldn’t change a thing.  She’d still be here with him now.  She can’t admit why.

She’s still shaking when she pulls up his damp shirt, slowly, gently.  She _needs_ to see the wound, just where it chilled his veins and sucked all her life out too.  It’s nonsensical, but she can’t move past that moment.  Can’t stop recoiling still, even when he is rescued and somewhat safe.

Her life was supposed to right itself, stop tilting the moment they raised his coffin.  But it hasn’t.

The handprint is still there.  The fingertips’ perfect indentation, as though it still grips his heart and all his grey veins run to it.

Not enough time to heal before the dessication set in.

Suddenly, she hates Stefan for this.

Her eyes are all watery and it’s not the briny air. 

Her hand hovers, as though to heal him.  The broken skin against her fingers and palm, warmer than she supposed.

She looks up to whisper her sorry, and his eyes snap open.  Startlingly brilliant blue-green.  No greyness creeping through.  A brilliant flash of colour amidst all the greyness.  If her heart still beat, it would have stopped right then.

And then the floor is rising up to meet her again, the wooden planks unsteady and uneven beneath her feet, rocky like the waters of the Chesapeake.  Except there’s no railing to grip or Rebekah to steel her balance, and she falls or slips.

Has her touch awakened him?

She yelps and yanks her hand back, cradling it to her chest and moves off the bed.  And actually falls onto the floor.  When had she sat down?

“Klaus?”

He does not answer.  Of course he does not.  But his eyes follow her as she moves back into his line of vision.  Fluttering a little, struggling to remain open.

“You’re safe,” she declares, a little harshly, explaining and somewhat excusing herself, as though she has been doing something naughty.

Well, she has.

And suddenly, she wants to laugh, high-pitched and giddy, because that “you’re safe,” seems wrong on so many levels – but most especially because (and she really hates to admit this) she has been caught with her hand up his shirt.  Caroline, vamp molester, that’s her.

Hysterical.  Hysterical in not-the-funny sense.

He’s still watching her.

“Kol and Rebekah will be here any moment with the blood,” she explains, “and you will be right as rain in just a jiffy.” 

_Right as rain?  
_

_A jiffy?_

What is she?  85?

“Ugh,” she sits down in a chair by the bed, entirely disgusted with herself.

On the upside, at least she is no longer creeped out by his still figure.

Rebekah’s entrance saves her from further opportunities to humiliate herself.  For the moment.  Caroline is completely sure that other opportunities will arise.

“He’s awake!” Rebekah exclaims, and plops down on the bed beside her brother, setting down her tray of blood and leaning over to gaze into his eyes.

“Yes, just a minute ago,” Caroline answers, watching the pair, noting how Klaus’s eyes follow Rebekah just as they had followed her.  So intently. “He can’t speak, but he seems aware.”

Rebekah caresses her brother’s face, cradling his jaw in one hand and slightly running a thumb over the stubble.  An intimate, familiar gesture.  She whispers, “Yes, yes he is,” and bends to kiss his cheek.  Caroline flushes confusedly, somehow feeling as though she’s stumbled upon a depth between them she was not meant to see.  There is something about the way that they are with one another that seems far too intimate for a brother and sister.  And even though she suspects that such a kiss would not be the norm between them, those long looks certainly are. “Always and forever, Nik,” Rebekah murmurs.

They’ve been near-constant companions for a thousand years and some tiny part of Caroline is jealous of that devotion.  Even if it is twisted and just a bit cracked, it is still there, burning brightly despite all their hurt of one another.  Like two pieces whose jagged edges don’t quite fit.

It would be nice to have that constant in your life.  Still, Caroline shuts her eyes against it.

Kol drops a hand on the back of Caroline’s chair and she starts and looks up at him, having been unaware of his entrance.

She’s been watching Klaus too closely.

Hasn’t that been all she’s done in the past forty-eight hours in some way?

She spies the soldier standing obediently beside Kol, vacant expression in-tact.

“We have plenty of blood bags,” Caroline points out.

He smiles, blithely. “Never discount the power of a live, beating heart, sweetheart.  Besides, I’m feeling peckish myself.”

“Kol –” Caroline begins.

He wags a finger at her. “Priorities, darling.  We need to wake Sleeping Klaus first.”

She fumes, but does not disagree.  Not that she would get anywhere anyway.  She may have a bit of influence on Klaus (and really just _a bit_ ), but Kol is an entirely different beast.

“About time, Kol,” Rebekah admonishes.

He only raises an eyebrow and motions for her to begin.

Caroline’s eye catches the markings on a few bags resting on Rebekah’s tray. “Those aren’t … from Elena, are they?” she asks in some horror.

Rebekah rolls her eyes. “Of course they are, Caroline.  Do you think that we just have blood bags lying around?  Nik left these so these are what we have.”

“Some of us like our food from the source,” Kol needlessly adds.

“That was not part of the plan,” Caroline says, completely appalled.  She has betrayed Elena for this; she just could not use Elena’s blood in such a way.

“I said blood bags, didn’t I?” Rebekah insists.

“Well, yes, but –” She is a complete idiot.  She should not have allowed Rebekah to arrange the blood supply.  That’s like Original Family 101.

“Unless you would prefer that we use Mr. –” Kol turns to the  soldier, “what was your name?”

“Lane.”

Kol turns back to Caroline, a malicious grin in place. “We could put Mr. Lane into use, couldn’t we?  No doubt Nik would appreciate a good _live_ meal after being at the bottom of the Chesapeake.”

Caroline glares.

“All that blood pumping, warm and sticky down the throat.  Like manna from heaven.”

Rebekah snorts. “Manna from heaven?”

Kol shrugs.

“Anyway,” Rebekah begins, “we are using these, because the doppleganger’s blood must have more power.” She rips an opening in a bag and holds it over Klaus’s mouth, allowing a steady red stream to flow over his mouth and down to the pillow. “At least we are trying these first.”

Klaus’s eyes remain open, steadier, and boring into Rebekah’s.  His lips open just a bit and Caroline’s nails bite into the arms of the chair, ripping half-moon shapes into the fabric.  He still doesn’t really move. 

If her heart beat, it would be thumping wildly, a quick staccato to match her urge to pant, to match her staccato thoughts too.  It is actually happening.  They are actually waking him.  It’s actually working. 

Rebekah opens another bag and places it at his mouth, and suddenly he is drinking, gulping it in long draws.  His hand, the one Caroline had touched just moments ago and wondered at its deathlike appearance, rubbery and grey, is growing warmer, veins receding; he’s clutching Rebekah’s arm in a vice-like grip, his nails piercing her skin, drawing her blood.  She cries out a little, and Caroline shoots up, ripping open another warmed bag and shoving it into Klaus’s mouth.  She sits on the bed too.

She won’t think about Elena’s blood right now.  Just another entry to her list of unforgivable deeds lately.

His eyes are on her now, but he’s moving, taking the bag from her completely and draining it, and still moving.  She thinks he might attack her, because his eyes glint yellow and he is so lost to bloodlust.  But he only moves to sit and Rebekah hands him another bag.  He drains that too, all the while still staring at Caroline, the blood leaking down his throat, sweeter than it should be for bagged blood.  No acrid scent.  Richer than any treat she’s ever smelled in a bakery.  Caroline finally understands the pull of the doppelganger’s blood, even if the human part of her recoils.  This blood was the absolute root of all vampire lines.  Of course it would be sweeter, more potent. 

Great, now she’s never going to be able to _unthink_ that.

She really should not be watching the tiny rivelet of blood sneak beneath his collar.

Not good at all.

His veins are all receded except for those around his eyes.  Feral.  Wild.  She’s never found a vampiric face so beautiful before.

That should be worrisome, shouldn’t it?

Especially when he’s tugging her into him, an almost embrace.

His fangs slide into her neck, a tiny pin prick of pain, a precision so neat that she barely feels the tug opening her veins.  It’s at odds with anything she’s ever experienced in vampire bites.  Such gentleness even.  Does he recognise her on some level?  She moans at the pull of his mouth, his lips gliding across her skin, an almost kiss, his tongue sneaking out to flick her flesh, and she grips his shoulder to steady herself.  She’s weakening, can already feel the venom clawing through her veins, slowing everything, bloodloss heightening its effect.  Like he’s clawing inside of her too.  She would protest, but she can’t seem to form anything but “Klaus” in a kind of moan.

She likes the feel of his fangs too much.

As darkness creeps into her peripheral vision, tiny pin pricks of black, blotting the light away, and the rushing in her ears becomes too loud, someone pulls her away. 

A wrist is shoved to her mouth. “Drink love,” in a husky voice she feared she would never hear again.

She doesn’t hesitate.  The scent is too strong.  She doesn’t even mind the brine, she thinks faintly, before sinking her teeth.  Her bite is not so elegant, and at the first taste of his blood, she presses his arm greedily, taking long drafts, her whole body curling possessively into him.  Feeling his blood seeping into her veins, sweet and heady.  Woody and alive.  Flowing all through her body, warming her, and checking the venom and erasing all her tension and doubts and fear of the last two days.  _At last._  

She can feel him everywhere, a hyper-awareness in every cell, how he moves, how he feels and cradles her head a little stiffly yet.  Addictive.  It’s everything she’s been yearning for since that January night. 

He moans against her ear, “Caroline,” but she can hear him in her head too.  He’s inside her and she’s inside him.  And it’s unlike anything she’s felt in this world.

Klaus’s blood is definitely sweeter and more potent than any doppelganger’s could be. 

He pulls his arm away gently and she falls back, groggy and exhausted.

“Wow, that was … hot actually.”

“Shut up, Kol,” she hears Klaus warn before sleep claims her.

* * *

 

When Caroline wakes, she’s lying on the bed, nose pressed against the fading scent of Elena’s blood mixed with salt water.  Klaus is the one sitting in the chair.  A book lying open on his lap.  Observing her.  Pensive, smug, and naughty all at once. 

His lips turning upwards in a small smirk.

Looking all _healthy_ and not like he’s spent the better part of a night and day beneath the Chesapeake.

Far, far too healthy, she thinks, her eyes resting on the dimples tempting to show.

She still tastes his blood, feels his fangs in her neck.  Too aware of him still.  Like every cell is magnetised to him.  She still wants him to sink into her in more ways than one.

And he doesn’t even smell briny anymore.

So there goes that deterrent.

She groans and rubs her eyes.  He shifts and looks at her in some concern, all previous hints of naughtiness dropped.  His eyes wide and solemn.

“Are you still hurting, love?” he asks.

She answers, “I’m fine,” but her world’s still reeling.  It has been for days now and she doesn’t think it will ever tilt back to its proper place again.  Everything in her leans towards him – like she’s part of that compass-thing they had to use in Geometry once.  The steady pin point and the pencil, which moving, still leans towards its centre.  She’s that.  The pencil.

She isn’t even sure if that makes sense to herself.

He drops his feet where they’ve been propped on the bed, and closes his book with a snap.  But he doesn’t move closer.

Why doesn’t he move closer?  She did.  When he had been the one lying here.

She shouldn’t want that. 

“My apologies, Caroline,” he says, almost like he had months ago, and she’s still collateral damage. “I was not in control this morning.”

She frowns.

Her hand drifts to her neck to find his marks already healed.  Disappointment.  She would have liked to have kept them a while longer.  She can’t gather her wits or strength enough to be shamed by that yet. 

God, she’s hopeless.

He’s always watching her like she’s the most fascinating thing on earth.  She knows that she’s not.  And now he’s leaning towards her.  Like their roles have been reversed again.  That compass-thing, leaning towards its centre.

He’s so much closer, nearly hovering when he moves to sit on the edge.  Just like he had on her bed in Mystic Falls.  But this time, she shifts up to him, leaning against an enormous pile of pillows.  Her brow is still furrowed, but she can’t be afraid anymore.  Her veins buzz for an entirely different reason. 

They just stare at one another.

She squirms a little, leaning further back into the pillows.  Because really?  Rescuing dessicated Klaus was so much easier than sitting with him now.  He can question her now.

She’s not ready for that.

Instead, she deflects, pretends that she is not squirming away from him. “How do you feel?” she finally murmurs.

He begins to smile, a real smile with no smugness at all or evilness.  Like the smile outside the Grill, when he dared her to get to know him.  And she’s just _amazed_ that she can do that.  Make him smile like that.  She can read that in his eyes too.  That she is here and he’s just _amazed_ by her presence. 

That smile makes it so much more difficult for her to keep her distance, physical and emotional.

Rebekah was so right.  Klaus does slip under your skin, make you care more than is reasonable or healthy.  In some ways, it is his modus operandi.  It worked for Rebekah and Elijah and Caroline.  Certainly Caroline.  Makes her commit unspeakable acts and reason all her doubts away.

“Alive,” he replies softly.  She starts, because she’s been staring into his eyes again and forgot her question entirely.  How are you feeling – you’re safe – it’s a constant strain between them.  The unspeakable gist of their connection.  They always seem to save one another, but they are also the cause of their troubles.  So, they have to keep asking, hearing the words, somehow reassuring, because in the last few weeks, maybe even days, it’s become absolutely necessary that they are both okay even when they scheme against one another.

Except this time.  This time she’s been unequivocably on his side and the weight of that decision hangs in the air between them and seems to stifle all of Caroline’s breath.  Especially when Klaus looks at her so expectantly.

What more can he expect of her?

“I don’t expect anything, love,” he answers.  She should really learn to keep her tongue around him.  “Except ... maybe ...” he trails off, allowing his fingers to trail down her arm and dance across her palm, a fleeting carress that makes her fingers curl instinctively around his own.  He studies her, how she reacts to him, how she looks at him.  But he must see some sort of reassurance she had not meant to show or even feel, because he smirks and takes her hand.

She jerks away.

“What?” she bites out, completely off-guard by this tenderness.  She expects long looks and seductive words and quick anger from him.  But not this ... gentleness.  She doesn’t know what to do with it.  It frightens her. 

She shouldn’t elicit such gentleness ... from him, and she shouldn’t be here now.  She still smells Elena’s stale blood, dried dark brown on her pillow.  Can even smell the traces in him, mixed with her own blood as he sits beside her, and the magnitude of her every action since she left the school yesterday just crushes her.  Like she’s feeling the delayed pressure of all those million gallons of water when she dove in for him.  Squishing her lungs against her heart.  She has nothing to keep all that emotion, guilt at bay or even quieted – especially when the reason for all her actions sits with her, head cocked to the side, eyes too bright, probably wondering why she’s done it too.

_Oh please don’t ask me why._

“What?” she says again, harsh.  She wants to sound petulant and angry, except she sounds frantic. “What do you expect?”

“Love,” he murmurs, smirking, a different expression than the derisive smirk given to her friends or even his brothers.  There is just a hint of vulnerability as he savours her presence here and even more the reason behind it.

At first she thinks that’s what he meant, that he expects her love.  She would dart up to flee the room.  Because that’s just ... not possible.

Except that he calls her love and pauses, like he can’t say more.  Doesn’t know how.  All those grandiose speeches are second nature.  But something real?

Those words, feelings are walled up, matted and framed like the stolen love letters above his bed.  Those yellowed and crinkled papers Rebekah told her about as they waited to find Klaus.  It made it okay to find him.  In Caroline’s mind it was okay.  It was creepy, sadistic, but sad too ... if he could keep such a personal item, it meant that he could _feel_. In some way, wants to feel. That he isn’t only a monster.  That Caroline isn’t a monster for needing to save him.

But the way that he looks at her, still reaches for her – it’s just too much.  She can’t mean that much to someone like him.  She’s still Caroline Forbes, the beauty queen, who wants sleepovers and prom, and her mom to hold her when she cries and kiss her boo-boos away.

When she thinks of what it could mean to _be_ with Klaus (and she’s wondered, because hello? she’s only 18 and he bought her diamonds and draws pictures of her and speaks in an accent – pre-vamp Caroline totally would have hit that – not that she would _now_ ) – but when she _does_ wonder, she only sees a too beautiful blond woman in silk gowns and corsets, human blood dripping from a kill that they’ve shared.  She sees his match in everything.

Caroline is a long, long way from being Darla to Klaus’s Angelus.

“I can’t do this,” she whispers even as he’s reaching for her again. 

He drops his hand in the space between her arm and her hip, making the bed dip a little more to his weight. His skin brushes against her and she gulps so she won’t gasp.  “Can’t do what?” he asks, irritated.

“This!” she exclaims, taking the opportunity to pull her arm away from him, to sit up straighter, to not appear weak.  “I can’t be _this_ with you!”

Klaus’s brow furrows. “Caroline, what are you talking about?”

“I can’t be your Dark Mistress of Evil!” she blurts.

He smiles slowly, but widely, dimples too pronounced, and he laughs at little softly.  She’s never heard him laugh.  It makes all her righteous indignation deflate a little. “Love, I wasn’t asking,” he says.

She huffs. “So, what? I’m not good enough or evil enough for you?” she baits irrationally.  Well, he brings that out in her.

He laughs at her outright. “You are adorable, love.”

“I am not adorable, Klaus.  I am a vampire.”

“Do you want to be my Dark Mistress of Evil then, love?”

She really hates how he can make something sound mocking and flirtatious. “No! and don’t patronise me.  You are missing my point, Klaus.”

“What, exactly, was your point?”

“My point ... my point was ... it was somewhere in there,” she says, frowning and feeling more than foolish.

“Right.”

Caroline narrows her eyes and moves up to leave the bed.  “I think it’s time that I leave.”

“No,” Klaus says, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“You can’t hold me hostage.”

“I wasn’t planning to, Caroline,” he responds. “It’s dark,” he nods towards the window.

“So?”

“Alaric Saltzman could be anywhere.  We need to stay here until sunrise.”

“I can’t stay all night with you.  People will be looking for me.”

“Love, I think they know where you are by now,” he pauses, smirking again, “or who you are with at any rate.”

She glares. “Are you actually afraid of Alaric?” she mocks.

“No, but I do like to pick my battles, preferably when I have the upper-hand,” he responds, eyes narrowed.  He is closer than she figured, his hand still resting on her shoulder, and she wonders if he is even aware that his thumb moves over her clavicle softly, a soothing hypnotic caress.  He appears annoyed.

He’ll be more determined than ever, Rebekah had said.  She sees it in his eyes and the line of his jaw.  Even when he is annoyed and half-amused.

No one’s ever been determined for her, really.

She shivers, because he spent over a thousand years waiting, searching, hunting to break a curse. 

To have that all turned to her.  If she were next ...

His fingers trail over his bite mark, sparking tingles down her body and she wonders if he left something behind after all.  Some part fused into her being that only responds to his touch.  Forever.

Or would it fade as his blood leaves her system?

She does not want it to.

Perhaps her world should tilt this way.

She gasps.

His eyes widen, so much bluer and excited for her reaction, so he leans forwards, his smile a little naughty now, to press a kiss against his mark.  To soothe it.  To make her gasp again and slide her fingers through his curls. “Klaus,” and her voice is a moan and a pant.

She meant his name to be a warning.

When she did she move into his arms?

She’s still dizzy and reeling from his blood, which hums and burns through her veins like it’s warming her from the inside out.  Like her own blood beating in his body.  Like she can almost _feel_ it inside him, some part of her stamped inside him that she needs back.  She can see it glinting in his eyes, and it’s why she leans into him.  She _knows_ that she shouldn’t allow this, but she cannot turn away or stop him, not when he’d been dessicated and she nearly lost her mind over it.

It’s not a normal reaction, she _knows_ , but she can’t stop inhaling him, and tugging him closer, and slipping a hand inside his shirt to make _sure_ the branding is gone.

All smooth and twitching beneath her hand.

He glides his lips across her jawline, just barely, and inhales her scent deeply.  Like she’s a drug to him.  Or his salvation.

She’d rather be that.

Even if there is no redemption involved.

And then, he’s tugging her lip between his teeth and she can’t think at all.  His eyes gleaming and glinting gold at her whimper.   And he’s finally kissing her.  Over and over.

She’s kissing _Klaus_. 

She faintly tastes her blood on his tongue, tangling with hers, flirty and intense all at once.  Exploring her, even as she holds him to her mouth, fingers sliding through his silky curls, and explores his mouth as well.  He moans and she feels instinctively that he tastes his blood in her as well.  Their blood mingling together in one heady, hypnotic kiss that has her reeling again and she doesn’t mind, finally, because he steadies her, pulls her into him and moans again at their mutual coppery and sweet taste, their scents mingling too.  His mouth glides over hers – in some way the world makes sense.  Her place in the world clicked by his side, the antsy unbelonging of her turning fading away, even as he pushes her back.

Groaning and pressing her against the pillows, his arms are rigid around her to support his weight.  But she doesn’t want that care.  She _needs_ to feel that weight against her, heavy and harsh and vibrating and _alive_.  So, she pushes against his arms, forcing him to fall onto her, snuffing her breath and pulling moans out of them both when she moves against him.

“Caroline,” he groans against her neck, his breath caressing the mark still burning for him.  It just might always burn for him.  “Come away with me love.”

She’s still centred into him, but she’s brought back to reality too. “No,” she says harshly, right into his curls, deeply inhaling the salt scent there.  Only there.  The only evidence left from his soak in salt water. 

But she doesn’t move away.

Something inside her changed that January night he gave her blood and promised her the world.  Something shifted further with Tyler’s call, and no matter the misgivings or her own quaking desire to flee, she cannot will that shift again – nor return to her former self.

It would be a useless endeavour at any rate.

He shifts away abruptly and she bites her lip to still a whimper at his loss. 

“Why not?” he questions, equally harsh.  He stands up, presumably to put some distance between them – for which she is grateful.  She needs some clarity now.  She cannot allow him to muddy her perspective when he’s already wrecked her life.

“I cannot,” she protests. “I have … a family, a life in Mystic Falls – my mom and I’m just can’t.”

“That life is never going to be enough for you, love,” he insists, low and harsh, just as when she had danced with him just days ago.  Slightly threatening.  _Mark my words_.  Was it just days ago?  She shouldn’t still be hearing it in her head when he’s pacing in front of her. 

“It is enough for me now.  It is all I want.”

“Do you think that they will so easily welcome you back, sweetheart?” She hates how he gets right to the root of the matter, and her greatest fear, even as she recognises the truth of his assertion. 

She’ll have her work cut out for her.  She hopes someone will welcome her back, really hopes so.  Her mom.  At least Stefan and Elena, they are all about second chances. 

She really has no hope of Tyler now.

That should bother her more.

“You’ve went _against_ them, Caroline.  There is no going back.”  He cannot seem to help the triumphant smirk skating about his lips, reddened where she had bit and kissed them.  Too red.  They draw her eyes like a bloody beacon and she instantly feels them against her neck, puckering and sucking her blood down his throat.  It makes shiver.  Too much about him makes her shiver.

Especially his too harsh words and tone.  He _likes_ that she has no way back.

It’s just what she needs to restore her habitual anger with him.  She frowns and moves off the bed in a flash. “You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?”

“They’ve forgiven Stefan for more.”

“Sweetheart –”

She bats away the hand reaching for her again. “Stefan saved your life once and they all took him back,” she insists, somewhat hysterically.

He runs a hand through his mussed curls, drawing her attention back to how they felt through her fingers, too soft despite the saltwater.  He narrows his eyes, irritated when she darts away from him, around the bed and clutching the nightstand.  He stalks her.

“The circumstances are just a little different, love, aren’t they?” She hates the malicious smirk the most. “Stefan saved my life in order to save his brother.  What of you?”

“What of me?” her voice quakes at any sort of answer.  What of her?  What has she done?  She has no sort of excuse to give anyone.  The truth is so much worse.  It hurts to say it aloud.  She might have desperately clung to some sort of excuse to Stefan.  She did ... she did ... that they needed an ally against Alaric ... that she might have owed Klaus for saving her twice.  But all that rings hollow.  It sounded hollow when she argued with Stefan and recognised his disbelief.

She can’t seem to utter the same excuses to Klaus.  He wouldn’t believe them anyway, not when she can still taste him against her lips and feel his blood course through her body.

“Do you honestly think that things will be different when we leave this room?” she asks, a harsh derisive tone from her cheer days.  Condescending, patronising, classic “mean girl” Caroline.  Meant to put people in their place.  She needs it as a defense, because however much she has interalised the magnitude of what she’s done, she can’t concede it to _him_.  It’s a step too far for her sanity to take.

He actually _rolls_ his eyes at her. “Of course they are, love.”

She scoffs.

He moves around the bed to her again, but stops within her arm’s reach, sensing that she would not tolerate more.  She twitchs like a caged animal, eyes darting around him.  She’s kissed him and touched him, and felt him warm in her arms, but she can’t just go with him.  Be that girl to throw every one she loves over for a boy.  For a certified villain even.  She still sees Stefan’s reproachful and disappointed expression, and she fears it will haunt her forever. 

She should push Klaus away, reject him harshly once and for all.  Demand that he never see or talk to her again.  She’s done enough for him.  But the trouble is?  She’s never been able to do that with him, and she cannot now.  Not when she’s saved him. 

He wouldn’t listen anyway.

“I could give you more than Tyler could ever dream,” Klaus continues, his voice ardent and soft. “You’d be a queen, my love, as you deserve.  I’d put you where you could wipe your feet on them.”

Again with his grandiose speeches.

She almost smiles.  Dear God, Tyler is the least of her worries at the moment.  Still, it is more difficult to resist his words than she could ever allow him to know.  He’s said these words before, but she’s never been so close to accepting – except they are still miles apart. “I don’t want to wipe my feet on anyone, Klaus.”

His expression falters, though it is no less intense. It’s harder, more determined.  He loves the chase too much, and a small part of her wonders if that is not the attraction.  He could tire of her easily.  He could.  She has no guarantees and she will not be collateral damage again.

That’s the thread of common sense, right?  Except she can’t properly believe all her internal arguments.

“You’ll never be rid of me,” he says, firmly – with just a little bit of threat.  She should be alarmed, but she can’t.  She is beginning to learn that most of his requests or declarations are couched as commands or threats.  He doesn’t know another way.  Or, at least he has forgotten another way. 

“I fear as much,” she concedes.

“Do you?”

She is pensive, but more unguarded than he has ever seen her. “Perhaps ‘fear’ is not the best word.”

“Why did you do it then?”

She just looks at him for a long moment, noting the shade of his eyes, French blue, blue like robin’s eggs, flickering gold with his emotions, each follicle of his stubble golden too, all the grey gone away – hopefully forever.  And she was a part of that.  Taking the grey away.  She can’t be sorry, won’t ever be sorry for _that_.  But, she will never be able to adequately describe why she did it.  “You promised me the world.  I’m just giving it back to you.”  That would have to do.  It is as close as she can get to describe the inexact and aching desperation she felt at the news of his _incapaticitation._

A thousand birthdays, he promised her, and it still hangs in the air – like the Klaus-voice in her mind.  It doesn’t matter that she stands with him now, he is still somehow inside her.

She is completely certain that some part of him was stamped into her soul when she drank his blood that first time.  It is the only conclusion that makes any sort of sense.  Why else would she have acted as she has?

He seems startled by her honesty.  Continual denial is more her way, at least where himself is concerned.  And then he smiles, slowly, in that unique way of his; she would blush if she could.  Embarrassed, but she wouldn’t take it back.  Never has her words had such power over anyone – that it should be him, now, still stuns her.

“You’re right.  Nothing will be the same.” She looks him bravely in the eye. “But I’ll have to live with that, face my consequences.”

He would have said something else, but she places two fingers against his too-soft lips, watching his expression soften. “But that’s okay.  I can do it.”

He takes her hand gently, pressing a kiss to the palm. “You don’t have to, Caroline.  That’s the beauty of being a vampire.  You just _will_ it away.  Take off.  Live.  See the world.  They’re not worth it, love.”

She takes a deep breath to will her stinging tears away, biting her lip and making her own dimples flash for a brief second. “My mom, my friends are worth it to me, Klaus.  Like Rebekah and Kol and even Elijah are worth it to you.”

She places the hand still clasped in his to his chest, just where the wound had been, pressing slightly.  He curls his own arm around hers and pulls her closer until she can feel his breath against her forehead, cool and steady; she closes her eyes, savouring this, him, the weight of his hand around hers, his strength, just his mere existence – the specificity of his weight in time.  Because this feels like forever.  She saved him for this moment only.  But it feels like it’s stretching clear across the arc of time.  Like every moment will always lead back to this, her standing with Klaus, sharing his breath.  Rebekah was right.  Caroline saved Klaus for herself, her one selfish moment in all the horror of the past few months.

And it’s ending.  Back to the regularly scheduled program tomorrow.

There will never be a happy ending for her.

“I’ll never give you up, Caroline,” he promises fiercely, ominously, his lips brushing her forehead.

She looks up at him, solemn, hopeful, with just a shade of despair. “Promise?”

* * *

C'est fini for now.  I have a sequel planned, but other writing priorities and work-related things right now.  But there is a sequel!

 


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